Abstract
The present work aims at developing a new version of the short form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised, which includes Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Lie scales (48 items, 12 per scale). The work consists of two studies. In the first one, an item response theory model was estimated on the responses of 590 individuals to the full-length version of the questionnaire (100 items). The analyses allowed the selection of 48 items well discriminating and distributed along the latent continuum of each trait, and without misfit and differential item functioning. In the second study, the functioning of the new form of the questionnaire was evaluated in a different sample of 300 individuals. Results of the two studies show that reliability of the four scales is better than, or equal to that of the original forms. The new version outperforms the original one in approximating scores of the full-length questionnaire. Moreover, convergent validity coefficients and relations with clinical constructs were consistent with literature.
Highlights
In the view of Eysenck, the structure of personality may be effectively described by three main traits: psychoticism (P), extraversion (E), and neuroticism (N)
From the remaining 29 items, 12 were selected taking into account their parameters ε and δ. This resulted in a new short scale, that differed from the original one for eight items
These modifications allowed for obtaining a new scale with increased reliability (α increased from 0.40 to 0.62; test information function (TIF) increased from 8.13 to 12.86) and with scores that better approximate those obtained with the full-length scale
Summary
In the view of Eysenck (see Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975, 1991), the structure of personality may be effectively described by three main traits: psychoticism (P), extraversion (E), and neuroticism (N) These dimensions are known as the “Giants Three” and represent basic, independent, and biologically founded traits. PEN traits do not represent pathological dimensions in themselves, but could lead to the development of abnormal conditions only in particular situations (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1991) In this perspective, neurosis and psychosis should be conceived as pathological exaggerations of the underlying traits of neuroticism and psychoticism (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1991; Mor, 2010). Extraversion is the second dimension included in the model and depicts sociable, carefree,
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