Big Five Inventory (BFI)

Introduction:

Authors: John Oliver P, Donahue Robinson Eileen, & Kentle Robert L.

Year of Publication: 1991

Domain: Personality inventory, reflecting personality traits and personality types.

Time: ( ) minutes

(Center for Psychological Studies, 2011)

A personality trait is a characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, or behaving that tends to

be consistent over time and across relevant situations. The Big Five—Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience—are a set of five
broad, bipolar trait dimensions that constitute the most widely used model of personality
structure. A considerable body of research has examined personality stability and change across
the life span, as well as the influence of personality traits on important life outcomes, in terms of
the Big Five.

BFI provides measures of 5 personality dimensions. The names of those dimensions are,

1.  Extraversion vs. introversion

2.     Agreeableness vs. antagonism
3.     Conscientiousness vs. lack of direction
4. Neuroticism vs. emotional stability
5.     Openness vs. closed-ness to experience
Origin /history of BFI:

Researchers have studied personality theories for the greater part of this century. The
theories have suggested everything from 4000 varieties of traits to Hans Eysenck’s three-factor
theory. Through refinement, researchers converged on the five-factor theory, also known as The
Big Five Personality Traits.
 In 1946, psychologist Raymond Cattell leveraged the power of one emerging technology
to better cluster Allport and Odbert’s list, the computer. With the technology, Cattell generated
181 clusters of personality traits and asked people which ones they observed in the real-world.
The analysis and research Cattell generated a sixteen factor framework test which included
factors such as intelligence.

In the early 1960s, two researchers from the United States (U.S.) Air Force picked up
where Cattell left off. Tupes and Christal created a test, eight large samples, finding five
recurring factors. Then in the 1970s two research teams did a massive survey of thousands of
people. These teams were from the National Institutes of Health, led by Paul Costa and Robert R.
McCrae, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Oregon, led by
Lewis Goldberg and Warren Norman respectively. Their results were in: personality could be
described along five dimensions.

Norman named these factors Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional

Stability, and Culture. Robert McCrae and Paul Costa went on to develop the Five-Factor Model
(FFM), describing the personality in terms of five broad factors. Psychologist Lewis Goldberg
used the term the ‘Big Five’ and developed the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), the
first psychometric test. The latter is an “inventory of descriptive statements relating to each
trait". A 1981 symposium in Honolulu gathered the world’s most prominent psychologists in the
field to examine the personality model proposed.

They concluded the Big 5 model was the most robust model of personality and an astute
psychometric test. Research reveals that 80% of personality variance can be observed along the
Big 5’s dimensions. The Big Five is the only psychometric test and personality model to gather
scientific consensus in personality psychology. This is what it sets it apart from other types of
psychometric tests.

Administration of the test;

The BFI is easy and convenient to administer. It might be administered individually or in

large groups. Complete directions for doing the big five inventory are given. Answers are
recorded on an answer sheet. It is a regular answer sheet for hand scoring only. The BFI answer
sheet is scored by hand. Directions for marking each type of answer sheet are given on the
answer sheet itself.

It has been found that it requires a very minimal amount of time for an individual to for
complete the BFI. Some individuals will take longer than rest and some will complete the BFI in
a shorter period. There is no time limit to completing the BFI, but the individuals should not be
informed of this unless they ask specifically. They should be encouraged to work as rapidly as
possible. The examiner may state a specific time period by which approximately half of the items
should be completed. If the examiner choose this method, the method of selecting specific time
periods for each number of items for example 7,14, 21, 28, 35 and so on the items should be
completed at the end of each successive periods.

Before giving back the items list as well as the answer sheet the individual should make
sure that if it has all the details such their initial’s, any other information ask and if he or she has
fulfilled the answers for each of the items. It is important that a response be recorded for every
item.

Choices are to be recorded on the answer sheet so that we can access them easily
afterwards. It is important to emphasize that the items answers should be written properly and
clearly. And to make sure to give the right numbers for the specific items and to not mix them
up.

Psychometric Properties:

Reliability:

The alfa Cronbach coefficients obtained (extraversion—α = 0.45, agreeableness—α =

0.24), conscientiousness—α = 0.62, neuroticism—α = 0.55 and openness—α = 0.36) are
acceptable given that, on the one hand, three of them are over 0.45 (the minimum allowed for the
two-item scales) except for agreeableness and openness, and, on the other hand, by comparing
them with alfa values reported by other BFI-10 validation studies. The lowest value of the alfa
coefficient in all the studies mentioned above is obtained for agreeableness (α = 0.03)

Validity:
 The convergent validity is demonstrated by the fact that BFI-10 correlates with the
measures for: subjective well-being (WB) like happiness, life satisfaction, positive and negative
affect and psychological and its dimensions. Internal consistency is acceptable given that we
evaluated an extra-short scale with two items per factor, although much reduced in comparison
with the instruments with a large number of items.

Current Administration
Quantitative Scoring of Big Five Inventory BFI:

(English Version)

Name of the dimension Score Range

(Sum)

Extraversion vs
Introversion

Agreeableness vs.
antagonism

Conscientiousness vs.
lack of direction

Neuroticism vs.
emotional stability

Openness vs. closed-

ness to experience

Summary and consistency with history profile:

The traits of personality greatly exhibited by the client are achievement, autonomy,
intraception, succorance, dominance, nurturance and aggression, which emphasizes on the
caring, understanding and altruistic aspects of personality of the client, but also on the conflicted
part that gives rises to aggression.

This result is also consistent with the actual profile that due to the conflicts with family
and friends the client has become aggressive and exhibits a high need for dominance. But the
client has always been warm and kindhearted towards friends.

References