Abstract
If personality traits are truly dimensional, our measures will assess standing on those dimensions best if items tap their full ranges at relatively even intervals. This level of measurement precision has not generally been examined for common personality measures, but item response theory (IRT) models offer powerful tools for doing so. The frequency of skewed score distributions suggests that it could be informative. We report results of such analysis in the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), among the most psychometrically robust measures of “normal” range personality. They indicated substantial but different gaps in item coverage in each of the 11 primary scales. We wrote 10 new items for each scale, intended to fill its particular gaps. We report the extent to which we succeeded and discuss implications for thinking of ‘abnormal’ personality as lying at the extremes of ‘normal’ personality. What, for example, does it mean to be ‘a little’ aggressive?.
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