Methods of Measuring Personality Research Paper

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Personality Measurements

Personality traits make up the characteristics of the individual. Schmutte and Ryff (1997) define personality traits as describing, "individual propensities toward stable patterns of behavior and thought, that often are neither inherently good nor inherently bad." Psychologists generally assess five factors of the personality, known as the Big Five personality factors. These five factors include neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. There are multiple scales designed to measure such factors. This paper will examine four major instruments used to measure personality, specifically, the Big Five personality traits; the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), the Five Factor Personality Inventory developed by Somer, Korkmaz & Tatar in 2002 (Tok, 2011), and the Big Five Inventory (John, Donahue & Kentle, 1991).

Discussion of Topic

When deciding on an instrument to measure personality, a researcher must take into account the scale's validity, reliability and preferred methodology. For this reason, there are often a variety of scales associated with a variable. Personality is no exception. There are multiple options for assessing personality. John and Srivastava (1999) argue there are too many stating that, "although diversity and scientific pluralism are useful, the systematic accumulation of findings and the communication among researchers became difficult amidst the Babel of concepts and scales" (pg. 2), and further that some scales measure similar concepts while others measure completely different concepts (John & Srivastava). To assess the personality in relation to the Big Five, a researcher must choose a scale that reliably measures the factors in a way that fits the methodology.

One popular scale used to measure the Big Five factors is the short form of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory developed by Costa and McCrae (1992). This measurement uses five scales, each measuring one of the five factors.

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Each scale contains 12 questions that use a 5 point Likert-type scale that ranges from disagree to agree. This short form is that of the Revised long format but is believed to hold reliability with an average Cronbach's alpha of .78 across the five factors (John & Srivastava, 1999). The scale was originally developed for use with middle age adults (Costa & McCrae) and has shown validity when compared to spousal responses (John & Srivastrava). Salami (2011) has used this scale to measure personality in a study interested in the relationship between personality, psychological well-being and emotional intelligence. Salami found a significant relationship existed between all five factors of personality and psychological well-being with a positive relationship for all factors except neuroticism. Salami found the scale to be reliable in that Cronbach's alpha ranged from .70 to .87 for each of the five scales. Salami's research utilized questionnaires to measure personality. This is possibly the scale with the highest reliability among other Big Five measurements (John & Srivastava, 1999). This instrument is designed for use when the methodology calls for questionnaires. The NEO-Five-Factor Inventory is not the only option for a researcher to assess the five personality factors.

Another option is the Five Factor Personality Inventory developed by Somer, Korkmaz & Tatar in 2002 (Tok, 2011). This scale is larger than the previously mentioned short form of Costa and McCrae's (1992) scale. It uses a 5 point scale to assess each factor. This 220 item scale measures the same five factors but also measures 17 sub-dimensions (Tok). Therefore, when there is a need to examine the components of each factor, this scale may prove useful. For example, Tok utilized this scale.....

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