NEOPI R

• A large number of researchers, including Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, Jr., have insisted that all personality structure can be subsumed under five, and only five, major factors
• In the search of the Big Five

  1. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Costa and McCrae were building elaborate taxonomies of personality traits

  2. They used taxonomy to examine the stability and structure of personality
• Five Factors Found

  • Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to experience, Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C)
• The five factors have been found across a variety of cultures and using a number of languages
• The five factors show some permanence with age
• Adults tend to maintain a consistent personality structure as they grow older
• Description of the Five Factors

  • Bipolar: Some people score high on one factor & low on its counterpart
  • Neuroticism (N) & Extraversion (E) are the most ubiquitous & strongest traits
• Openness


  • General appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience
• Conscientiousness


  • Tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement against outside expectations; Related to the way in which people control, regulate, and direct their impulses
• Extraversion


  • Characterized by breadth of activities (as opposed to depth), surgency from external activity/situations, and energy creation from external means, engagement with the external world
• Agreeableness


  • Reflects individual differences in general concern for social harmony
• Neuroticism


  • Tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression; Sometimes called emotional instability
• According to Sigmund Freud, neurosis is a coping strategy caused by unsuccessfully repressed emotions from past experiences
• Robert McCrae and Paul Costa used the Big Five Model of Personality
• NEO PI-R is a measure of five major dimensions (or “domains”) of personality
• The scales of the NEO PI-R were developed over 15 years of research
• The NEO PI-R attempts to provide a multipurpose inventory for predicting interests, health and illness behavior, psychological well-being, and characteristic coping styles
• Domains measured by NEO Personality Inventory

  • Neuroticism
  • Extraversion
  • Openness
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
• NEO PI-R provides scores on five major dimensions and on 30 additional traits, or facets
• NEO PI-R is for individuals 17 years of age and older (17-89) and is self-administered
• Forms of NEO PI-R

  • FORM S (self-report form with 240 items and 30 facets)
  • Form R (obtaining independent ratings from peers, spouses, and others on the same domains, contains no scales designed to check the veracity of responses, has two versions observer report form - FORM R-Men and FORM R-Women)
• Costa and McCrae intend for the NEO PI-R instrument to be useful in clinical and other applied settings, as well as in research
• Norms for adult men and women are available for both forms, and norms for college-age men and women are provided for Form S
• Computerized scoring and interpretation are available for NEO PI-R
• Administration & Scoring NEO PI-R

  1. Self-administered

  2. Subjects respond to a 5-POINT Likert scale (strongly disagree – strongly agree)

  3. Two parallel versions

  4. 240 items

  5. 3 validity items (no validity scales)

  6. Requires 6th grade reading ability

  7. More than 40 items missing – cannot be evaluated
• Computer scored

  NEO Software System
• Personality is shaped by both nature and nurture
• Personality has a strong biological basis, and the structure of personality should not differ much from culture to culture
• Traits have been linked to vital outcomes such as physical health, well-being, and academic success
• Conscientiousness is the most important trait for predicting GPAs in high school and college
• Individuals high on neuroticism (highly anxious) are very adaptive in terms of studying
• Traits have been linked to mood
• When people act in a certain way (extraverted or introverted), their behavior influences their mood to fit the behavior
• Versions of NEO PI-R

  • NEO PI 1985
  • NEO PI R 1990
  • NEO PI-3 2010 (12-99 years old, revision of NEO-PI-R, 38 items revised to accommodate lower level reading ability)
  • NEO-FFI-3 (Five Factor Inventory, 60 item version of NEO-PI-3, Short version)
  • NEO-PI-3 & NEO-PI-R On-site scanning module
  • NEO Software System
  • NEO PDR (Professional Development Report)