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Psychometric analysis of scores from the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) confirmed their internal (M = 527) and test-retest reliability (n = 335) in an Australian adult sample. The data also provided support for the internal and temporal reliability of scores derived from 13 lower order item clusters identified in the NEO-FFI by G. Saucier (1998).
Over the last decade, a consensus has emerged that five dimensions might be sufficient both to cover personality space and to represent the deductions from major theoretical approaches (Goldberg, 1993). This view has come to be known as the five-factor model (FFM) of personality (for a review, see O'Connor, 2002). The vast research output associated with Costa and McCrae's (1992) NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) has led some researchers to identify this particular formulation with the FFM (Digman, 1990). The five domains of personality as described by Costa and McCrae are labelled Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C). The NEO formulation has proven useful in clinical research (e.g., Groth-Marnat & Jeffs, 2002; Rector, Hood, Richter, & Bagby, 2002) and has been explored as a tool in clinical practice (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1991; Miller, 1991).
The NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992) is an abbreviated 60-item version of the 240-item NEO-PI-R. As described by Costa and McCrae, the NEO-FFI was constructed by first selecting the 12 items with the largest structure coefficients for each of the five factors. Subsequently, 10 substitutions were made to permit reverse keying of some items in each scale, diversify item content, and eliminate items with joint coefficients. In a sample of 1,539 employees of a large national corporation, Costa and McCrae found coefficients of internal consistency ranging from .68 (A) to .89 (N).
Because of its brevity, comprehensiveness, and ease of administration, the NEO-FFI has great promise as both a clinical and a research tool (Tokar, Fischer, Snell, & Harik-Williams, 1999). However, beyond the original samples investigated by Costa and McCrae (1992), the psychometric properties of scores from the NEO-FFI have not been widely tested. It has been argued that researchers and others are overly optimistic about generalizing psychometric findings from parent instruments to their associated short forms (Smith, McCarthy, & Anderson, 2000), and the NEO-FFI...