Th e NEO Personality

Inventory–Revised
• questionnaire is a measure of a comprehensive model of general
personality traits, the Five-Factor Model (FFM; Digman, 1990), or “Big
Five.”
• Th e NEO-PI-R and a slightly simplifi ed NEO-PI-3 (McCrae & Costa,
2010; McCrae, Costa, & Martin, 2005) consist of 240 items that assess
30 specific traits, which in turn defi ne the five factors:
• Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O),
Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C)
Th e NEO Five-Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-
FFI-3; McCrae & Costa, 2010)
• consists of selections of 60 of the items that assess only the five
factors
• Responses use a five-point Likert scale, from strongly disagree to
strongly agree .
Uses
• The NEO inventories are used around the world for basic research on
personality structure and development, they are also intended for
clinical use.
• Counselors, clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists can use the
personality profiles provided by the NEO inventories to understand
the strengths and weaknesses of the client, assist in diagnosis and the
identification of problems in living, establish rapport, provide
feedback and insight, anticipate the course of therapy, and select
optimal forms of treatment.
Theory and Development
• Throughout most of the 20th century, personality psychologists debated the
question of personality structure: What are the enduring individual differences
that allow us to describe the distinctive features of a person, and how are they
organized?
• Guilford had ten factors; Cattell sixteen, Eysenck two or three.
• five factors were necessary and sufficient to encompass the trait-descriptive
terms
• It is now known that the FFM incorporates both normal and abnormal
personality traits
• that it is a universal feature of the human species
• grounded in the human genome
• At fi rst we distinguished only three major personality factors—
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), and Openness to Experience (O)
• in the 1980s, work with the natural language of personality traits
convinced scientists that five factors were needed to form a
comprehensive model (McCrae & Costa, 1985, 1987).
• they related these factors to instruments based on Murray’s needs
(Costa & McCrae, 1988), Jung’s types (McCrae & Costa, 1989),
Gough’s folk concepts (McCrae, Costa, & Piedmont, 1993), and many
other conceptions of personality, and thus grounded the FFM in
personality theory
Revisions
• When first published (Costa & McCrae, 1985), the NEO Personality
Inventory consisted of 180 items, with six facet scales for each of the
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), and Openness to Experience (O)
domains, and brief global scales to measure Agreeableness (A) and
Conscientiousness (C).
• Four years later we introduced the short version, the NEO-FFI, as well
as new norms appropriate for use with college-age and adult
respondents (Costa & McCrae, 1989).
• In 1992 the NEO-PI-R appeared, with new facet scales for A and C,
and replacement of 10 of the original N, E, and O items.
• In 1994 a Spanish translation intended for use by Hispanics was
published (Psychological Assessment Resources, 1994), and
translations have now been made into over 40 languages.
• Research showed that the inventory could be used by children as
young as 10, but that some items were difficult for adolescents to
understand; a more readable version, the NEO-PI-3, has been
developed, along with a NEO-FFI-3.
• These instruments can be used by both adolescents (age 12 and
older) and adults, and they may be particularly useful in populations
with limited literacy
• Th e NEO-PI-3 and the NEO-FFI-3 were published in 2010. Computer administration,
scoring, and interpretation has been available since 1985; major updates, with many
features intended for the clinical use of the instrument, were released in 1994 and
again in 2010
• All the NEO inventories assess the fi ve factors. Because these broad constructs
summarize so much information, they are the logical starting place for personality
assessment. Th ey explain whether the client is chronically predisposed to emotional
distress versus emotionally stable (N); energetic and thrill-seeking versus sober and
solitary (E); curious and unconventional versus traditional and pragmatic (O); kind
and trusting versus competitive and arrogant (A); disciplined and fastidious versus
laidback and careless (C). Th e domain scales of the NEO-PI-R and NEO-FFI provide
measures of all fi ve factors; more precise estimates can be obtained as NEO-PI-R or
NEO-PI-3 factor scores.
Psychometrics
• Internal consistencies of the 48-item domain scores are high. For
example, in an adult sample ( N = 635), coefficient alphas for
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O),
Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C) domain scores from the
NEO-PI-R were .92, .89, .88, .90, and .91, respectively, for Form S and .
93, .90, .88, .93, and .93 for Form R
• Coefficient alphas for the eight-item facet scales are understandably
lower; in the adult sample they ranged from .51 to .86 ( Mdn s = .75
for Form S, .78 for Form R); in the adolescent sample they ranged
from .44 to .84 ( Mdn s = .73 for Form S, .75 for Form R).
• Th e structure has been satisfactorily recovered in adults, college
students, and children as young as 12, in men and women, and in
black and white Americans (Costa et al., 1991).
• Recently, observer rating data were obtained from 50 cultures using
translations of the NEO-PI-R into over 20 languages (McCrae et al.,
2005a). Of 250 factor congruence coefficients, 236 (94.4%) were
higher than .85, indicating factor replication (Haven & ten Berge,
1977), and all but one were significantly higher than chance.
• NEO scales have been correlated in meaningful ways with scales from
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway &
McKinley, 1983; Siegler et al., 1990), the Millon Clinical Multiaxial
Inventory (Lehne, 2002), the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI;
Morey, 1991), and the Basic Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae,
1992a). Th ey have proven useful in predicting vocational interests (De
Fruyt & Mervielde, 1997), ego development (Einstein & Lanning,
1998), attachment styles (Shaver & Brennan, 1992), and psychiatric
diagnoses of personality disorders (McCrae, Yang, et al., 2001).
Administration and Scoring
• . The instrument can be administered to individuals or groups, and it
can be administered orally to those with limited literacy or visual
problems.
• Both machine- and hand-scoring answer sheets are available; the test
booklet is reusable.
• Th e NEO-PI-3 is intended for individuals age 12 and older, while the
NEO-PI-R is intended for individuals aged 18 and older, although it has
been used successfully with high-school students
NEO-FFI-3
• The NEO-FFI-3 is a 60-item version of the NEO-PI-3 that provides a quick, reliable, and
accurate measure of the five domains of personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness,
Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). All updates made in the NEO-PI-3 are reflected in
this instrument.
• Purpose:
• Provides a quick assessment of general personality using the five-factor model
• Format:
• Paper and pencil, Online administration and scoring via PARiConnect
• Age range:
• 12 years to 99 years
• Time:
• 10-15 minutes