Verbal Accessibility and Character Structure
Norman A. Polansky · 2017
The authors&s; studies in the children&s;s institution began with the intention of emphasizing the determinants of Verbal Accessibility (VA) that derive from the social context. VA might be regarded both as a variable reflecting forces in the social situation and as a meaningful attribute of personality or character. To regard VA as a stable and "significant" attribute required demonstrating a number of things: Stability in time; Stability in varying social situations or contexts; Predictability, on the basis of other knowledge about the personality; Fruitfulness for making forecasts, in turn, about the person. The main evidence for such temporal stability comes from the study by Rickers-Ovsiankina and Kusmin. Mothers with higher VA had more intelligent children, a relationship again significant at beyond the one per cent level of confidence. Variations in VA with cultural background may be treated as an extension of the study of personality characteristics.