A preliminary study was conducted to investigate the concept of privacy in 55 Japanese undergraduates. Based upon its results, a 15-item five-point scale of orientation toward privacy was developed. These scales and Yatabe-Guilford personality inventories, originally developed by Guilford, J.P., were administered to 134 Japanese undergraduates (35 males and 99 females). Factor analysis regarding the scale of orientation toward privacy yielded three factors, i.e., orientation toward solitude, orientation toward not publicizing one's mental life and orientation toward not publicizing one's diseases and physical defects. Correlation coefficients were calculated between factor scores and personality trait scores. Orientation toward solitude was positively related to depression, cyclic tendency, lack of objectivity, and lack of agreeableness but negatively to thinking extraversion. In addition, orientation toward not publicizing one's diseases and physical defects was positively related to depression, inferiority, and lack of cooperativeness but negatively to social extraversion. However, orientation toward not publicizing one's mental life was not associated with any personality traits. Finally, those with maladjusted personality had greater privacy orientation than those with adjusted one.
