THE MEANING OF SOME "POPULAR" VARIABLES.

The article reports that with regard to attributes associated with individuals that is personality traits, the criterion problem is very often submerged in the multitude of possible measures that are advanced. It would seem that the ultimate criterion should be the ability to classify individuals in a consistent manner that is in accord with the expert definition of the variable. This means that if the judges find it satisfactory, a paper-and-pencil test could be provided which would measure the characteristic of "authoritarian." This would leave open the question, however, of whether authoritarianism is a behavior among individuals or a disposition to answer a paper-and-pencil questionnaire in a given way. If the assertion is that authoritarianism is a tendency to behave in a given way in interpersonal relations rather than in a given way to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, then the criterion problem is not satisfied even when the judges agree that certain paper-and-pencil responses should be classified as authoritarian.