BODY TYPE DICTIONARY – BY ANDREW WILSON (FREE)

Dictionary Information

Description – The Body Type Dictionary is an attempt to operationalize Fisher and Cleveland’s (1958) theory of body-boundary strength for use in computer-assisted content analysis. Working originally with Rorschach ink-blot protocols, Fisher and Cleveland identified two broad personality types: “High Barrier” individuals, who have a confident sense of their own self boundaries, and “Low Barrier” individuals, who have a less clear sense of their distinct identity and are inclined towards what one might call a “de-differentiated” image of themselves in relation to others and the outside world in general. In turn, Fisher and Cleveland (and subsequent researchers) have linked these personality types to a wide range of other personality, health, and social variables. Fisher and Cleveland’s person categorizations were based on two kinds of subconscious verbal imagery in their Rorschach protocols: barrier imagery, which shows a concern for protective boundaries, and penetration imagery, which relates to the destruction or penetration of such boundaries. In their 1958 book, they provide a detailed set of manual coding instructions and sample coded Rorschach protocols, on which the Body Type Dictionary is based. The dictionary contains 515 words stored in 12 categories.

Later work has shown that the two categories of barrier and penetration imagery are relevant not only to ink-blot tests but also to naturally occurring texts such as dream narratives (Ruggeri & Saraceni, 1981), historical and biographical writing (Newbold, 1984), fantasy stories (Wilson, 2006), and religious texts (Wilson, 2009). In particular, it seems that these categories are closely related to other measures of altered states of consciousness – for instance, primary process thought, as measured using the Regressive Imagery Dictionary (Wilson, 2009).

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Installation Instruction

Extract the content of the zip file into the WordStat Dictionary folder (by default: My Documents\My Provalis Research Projects\Dictionaries).

To obtain information on WordStat content analysis software or download a trial version, click here.

Main reference (to be cited in all publications which make use of it)

Wilson, A. (2006). Development and application of a content analysis dictionary for body boundary research. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 21, 105-110.

Other relevant references:

Fisher, S. & Cleveland, S. (1958). Body image and personality. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Newbold, R.F. (1984). Suetonius’ boundaries. Latomus, 43, 118-132.

Ruggeri, G. & Saraceni, C. (1980). Il concetto di “confine del sé” nel test di Rorschach: Una prospettiva teorico-clinica. Archivio di Psicologia, Neurologia e Psichiatria, 41, 255-275.

Ruggeri, G. & Saraceni, C. (1981). L’articolazione del “confine del sé” nel sogno e nel test di Rorschach. Archivio di Psicologia, Neurologia e Psichiatria, 42, 175-192.

Saraceni, C., Ruggeri, G. & Filocamo, D. (1980). Studio sperimentale con il test di Rorschach sulle modificazioni dell’immagine corporea in ipnosi. Archivio di Psicologia, Neurologia e Psichiatria, 41, 50-64.

Wilson, A. (2008). Psychosemiotic cycles and the liturgical year: A case study and framework for research. Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag.

Wilson, A. (2009). Barrier and penetration imagery in altered states of consciousness discourse: Replicating the five-stage model of Christian mysticism in the Bible. In W. Oleksy & P. Stalmaszczyk (Eds.), Cognitive approaches to language and linguistic data: Studies in honor of Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (pp. 357-372). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.