Methods of Reordering the Correlation Matrix to Facilitate Visual Inspection and Preliminary Cluster Analysis

Using the notion of parallel items this paper presents a family of new criteria for cluster analysis. Instead of looking at the item correlation matrix one could look at a matrix of similarity coefficients. These coefficients are standardized raw dot products of columns in the correlation matrix or related numbers. After discussing the properties of this matrix the discussion will move to a classic example of a factor analytic problem in personality assessment, an item pool concerned with Fromm's marketing orientation, and a brief discussion of problems outside of cluster analysis will conclude the paper.