Some origins and evolution of the EPQ-R (short form) Neuroticism and Extraversion items

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Abstract

A familiarity with the item content of a range of psychometric devices for the assessment of personality traits, together with some appreciation of the interdependence of the early test constructors, lead to an exploratory attempt to study item history more formally. Given that the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (short form) represents more than a half-century of test development and item refinement, and includes the Big Two dimensions of Neuroticism and Extraversion, it seemed an appropriate British starting point. Inspection of the range of Eysenck measures and some of the other major inventories produced family trees of suitably modified items from the 1920s and 1930s. Of particular interest is the liberal interchange of content between these founding fathers. It is hoped that this pioneer pilot study will encourage further exploration.

Introduction

In differential psychology there is proper concern for how items within personality and intelligence scales perform. There is a grand statistical array of techniques to check item performance and the reliability and validity of the scales to which they contribute. However, there is another question about items: where did they come from? This is what could be called ‘psychometric archaeology’. A good example of this type of research was conducted by Boake (2002). He traced the origins of the items in David Wechsler’s 1939 Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale and found them in tests that were developed between 1880 and World War I. Here, we examine some personality test items. It is not a comprehensive investigation. In archaeological terms, it would be called a ‘shovel test pit’: an examination of a well-marked-out small area to see if the ground beneath the surface contains interesting artefacts. We think it does. The idea for the investigation began when one of us (IJD) was examining the Bernreuter Personality Inventory and recognised some items as having familiar content.

Bernreuter (1933) observed that, “During this past decade, far too small a proportion of the attention which has been given to the matter of personality traits, has been directed toward the devising of adequate tests. The demands for results have been so urgent that in many instances inadequate devices have been widely used, both for research and guidance purposes.” The broad consistency of item-wording across the various self report questionnaires for the major personality dimensions is tacitly known to most of us. However, by contrast with the overt attention paid to traits, and their inter-relationships, little heed is given to the origins of the constituent items themselves. A perusal of the literature, including test manuals, produces phrases such as “a questionnaire was drawn up”, “questionnaires were prepared” and “items were selected”. In other words, scales are most usually presented full blown with respect to their item contents. A notable exception exists in the many derivations from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1967) item pool including the Eysenck Psychoticism (P) and Lie (L) scales (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1964, Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975).

Here, we decided to examine some origins of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised short form’s (EPQ-R) Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E) scales (Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985). In archaeological terms it had many attractions. It is a mainstream test, with well regarded and validated scales for N and E. It is the end of a long line of test revisions and item selection; therefore Eysenck’s own archaeology and the pre-Eysenck origins of the items could be studied. Eysenck’s work spanned many decades. The test is quite short, which meant that one could concentrate on the two best-validated scales and the relatively few items that Eysenck, over all that time, considered to be the best markers. In common with many other personality test developers, Hans Eysenck devoted relatively little space to describing the origins of the wordings of items. Indeed, neither of the Eysenck biographers, Buchanan, 2010, Gibson, 1981, comment much upon test construction let alone item selection. Rather, attention was paid to the clustering of items and their statistical evaluation, in particular through factor analytic techniques. Therefore, we present some preliminary findings on some origins of the EPQ-R short form’s N and E items. Block and Kremen (1966) suggested that “like most efforts at scale development, this conceptual effort has proceeded in empirical ways and has involved conceptual decisions that were not fully systematic. Therefore, the history of this sequence of efforts cannot be fully or precisely described. As Eysenck and Eysenck (1976) have remarked in an equivalent context, “Our reasons for accepting or rejecting items were so complex that it would be difficult to objectify them… the only possible check on the value of our work must be the validation of the final project’” (pp. 47).

Section snippets

Method

As stated above, the twelve items for each of the EPQ-R (Adult) short form dimensions (Eysenck et al., 1985) were chosen as representing the culmination of more than a half-century of test construction and item refinement. Further, the scales are applied world wide, cross-culturally and tied in with an influential personality theory.

The first step was to work backwards though the sequence of Eysenckian tests, texts and manuals for any information on item origin and to detect any changes in

Results

The results for Neuroticism are shown in Table 1. The EPQ-R short form item, ‘are your feelings easily hurt’ provides a good example of the findings. In may be seen in the same form in four of Eysenck’s own scales, and in a slightly different form (with the word ‘rather’ added) in two of his scales. Prior to that, both of the Eysenck versions of the item may be seen in scales by Bernreuter, 1931, Bernreuter, 1933, Guilford and Guilford, 1939b, Mosier, 1937, Thurstone, 1951, Thurstone and

Discussion

Looking into the items of the EPQ-R short form after this preliminary archaeological analysis, one can see that some items have a lineage that stretches back before Eysenck’s work, and others might have been minted by Eysenck. Many were altered in the lineage of Eysenck’s own scales. These results are similar to those of Boake (2002) when he studied the origins of the items in the 1939 Wechsler intelligence scales.

We are well aware that our starting point was only one of several possibilities,

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to acknowledge the contribution of Jennifer Tibbles in preparing this report. The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology is part of the cross council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Initiative (G0700704/84698). Funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) is gratefully

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