Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
A technique is outlined which may facilitate the rotation of factor axes to a meaningful position. It is based on certain relationships between the results of test and person factor analysis, and consists essentially of supplementing the test factor space with tests which are the test-equivalents of persons or groups of persons. These persons may be, for instance, well-known “types” in the domain being investigated, or even “freaks.” The ways in which these persons may be selected and used to determine the final rotated position of the factor axes is discussed.
This section is based on an extension of Sir Cyril Burt's Reciprocity Principle (Burt, C. The Factors of Mind, 1940.), which in its original form appiied only to the special case of a doubly-centred score matrix. The Reciprocity Principle was later extended to the singly-centred score matrix as used here (Sandier, J. Brit. J. Psychol., Star. Sect., 1949, 2, 180–87.).