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The California Adult Q-sort, aka the California Q-set and the California Adult Q-set (CAQ; Block 1961, 2008) is a set of statements used in observer and self-report assessments of personality. As an assessment tool, the CAQ is distinguished both by the content of its items and technical features including the ipsative nature of its intended use or administration. Most importantly, the empirical results attained by research using the CAQ are impressive. For example, the longitudinal Lives Through Time study (Block 1961), used the CAQ to develop an influential taxonomy of developmental trajectories. A second longitudinal study, the Block project, used the CAQ to illuminate the nature of constructs ranging from political affiliation to depression, as well as the psychological significance of phenomena such as divorce (see entry for “Block, Jack,” in this encyclopedia).
Item Content
The 100 items of the CAQ can be considered...
References
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Block, J. (2008). The Q-sort in character appraisal. Encoding subjective impressions of persons quantitatively. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Lanning, K. (1994). Dimensionality of observer ratings on the California Adult Q-set. Journal of personality and social psychology, 67(1), 151–160.
Rauthmann, J. F., Gallardo-Pujol, D., Guillaume, E. M., Todd, E., Nave, C. S., Sherman, R. A., Ziegler, M., Jones, A. B., & Funder, D. C. (2014). The situational eight DIAMONDS: A taxonomy of major dimensions of situation characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(4), 677–718.
Reise, S. P., & Oliver, C. J. (1994). Development of a California Q-set indicator of primary psychopathy. Journal of Personality Assessment, 62(1), 130–144.
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Sherman, R. A., Nave, C. S., & Funder, D. C. (2010). Situational similarity and personality predict behavioral consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(2), 330–343.
Wagerman, S. A., & Funder, D. C. (2009). Situations. In P. J. Corr & G. Matthews (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of personality (pp. 27–42). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wink, P. (1992). Three narcissism scales for the California Q-set. Journal of personality assessment, 58(1), 51–66.
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Lanning, K., Sherman, R.A. (2017). The California Adult Q-Sort. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_11-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_11-1
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