Lexical hypothesis

The Lexical Hypothesis (also the Fundamental Lexical Hypothesis, Lexical Approach, or Sedimentation Hypothesis) is one of the most important and widely used guiding scientific theories in personality psychology. Despite some variation in its definition and application, the Lexical Hypothesis is generally defined by two postulates. The first states that those personality characteristics that are most important in peoples' lives will eventually become a part of their language. The second follows from the first, stating that more important personality characteristics are more likely to be encoded into language as a single word. With origins in the late-19th century, use of the Lexical Hypothesis began to flourish in English and German psychology in the early 20th century. The Lexical Hypothesis is a major foundation of the Big Five personality traits, the HEXACO model of personality structure and the 16PF Questionnaire and has been used to study the structure of personality traits in a number of cultural and linguistic settings.