A very brief measure of the Big-Five
personality domains
Abstract
When time is limited, researchers may be faced with the choice of using an extremely brief
measure of the Big-Five personality dimensions or using no measure at all. To meet the need
for a very brief measure, 5 and 10-item inventories were developed and evaluated. Although
somewhat inferior to standard multi-item instruments, the instruments reached adequate levels
in terms of: (a) convergence with widely used Big-Five measures in self, observer, and peer reports,
(b) test–retest reliability, (c) patterns of predicted external correlates, and (d) convergence
between self and observer ratings. On the basis of these tests, a 10-item measure of
the Big-Five dimensions is offered for situations where very short measures are needed, personality
is not the primary topic of interest, or researchers can tolerate the somewhat diminished
psychometric properties associated with very brief measures.
2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.