Personality traits are known to moderate treatment response and are often an essential add-on to a symptom picture when performing a patient’s systematic evaluation. However, personality measures are often long to administer due to their large number of items. Rammstedt and John (2007) abbreviated the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) to a 10-item version (BFI-10) and found that the shortened scales retained reasonable levels of reliability and validity. The Italian adaptation of BFI-44 was administered to 645 subjects, together with a socio-demographic questionnaire. Psychometric properties (i.e., internal consistency and construct validity) of the BFI-44 and of BFI-10 were assessed through Confirmatory Factor Analyses. Psychometric properties of the BFI-44 and BFI-10 overlapped those of the English, Spanish and German version. Confirmatory analyses revealed that the factor structure based on responses to the items of BFI-10 was invariant with the factor structure based on responses to the items of BFI-44. We also modeled the effects of social desirability, age, gender and their interactions. The effects of such covariates were substantially invariant across factor structures of BFI-10 and BFI-44. Social desirability increased the goodness of fit of the measurement model while the linear component of age was positively correlated with Conscientiousness and negatively with Nevroticism, on which females scored higher than males. Though the BFI-10 scales showed acceptable levels of reliability and validity, they do not reach the depth of construct operazionalization provided by the scales of BFI-44, which thus should be employed in systematic evaluation in clinical settings.

1. Chiorri, C., Ubbiali, A., & Donati, D. (2008). Can personality traits be reliably assessed with short measures? An Italian study on the shortened
version of the Big Five Inventory-44. Talk given at the 39th International Meeting of the Society for Research in Psychotherapy, Barcelona, Spain,
18-21 June.
Can personality traits be reliably assessed
with short measures?
An Italian study on the shortened version of the
Big Five Inventory-44
Carlo Chiorri, PhD 1, Alessandro Ubbiali, PhD 2,
Deborah Donati. MD, PhD 2
1 Department of Anthropological Sciences – Psychology Unit, Genoa University, Italy
2 Department of Clinical Neurosciences - San Raffaele Turro, Milan, Italy
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, School of Psychology, Milan, Italy

2. Importance of personality
assessment
Personality often moderates treatment response
Personality traits are an important add-on in clinical
assessment
The use of personality measures in clinical practice is
often limited by the long administration time (e.g.,
NEO-PI-R)

3. The Big Five Model
Generally found across cultures (Hofstee et al., 1997)
Has strong predictive validity (Ozer & Benet-Martinez,
2006; Paunonen, 2003)
Good interrater agreement (McCrae & Costa, 1987)
Hereditability (Bouchard et al., 1996)
Children as early as in middle childhood can be
characterized by them (Asendorpf & van Aken, 2003)

4. Big Five Measures
1-item dimensions (Gosling et al. 2003)
2-item dimensions (TIPI, Gosling et al. 2003; BFI-10,
Rammstedt & John, 2007)
7/9-item dimensions (BFI-44, John et al., 1991;
BFMM, Saucier, 1994)
20-item dimensions (FFPI, Hendriks et al., 1999)
2-facet/12-item dimensions (BFQ, Caprara et al.,
1993)
6-facet/8-item dimensions (NEO-PI-R, Costa &
McCrae, 1992)

5. Openness to experience
NEO-PI-R
Ideas Fantasy Aestethics Feelings Values Actions

6. Big Five Inventory (BFI-44)
John et al., 1991
Freely available and widely used in Internet assessment
(e.g., Srivastava et al., 2003)
Aims at measuring the Big Five dimensions using as
few items as possible while achieving adequate levels of
reliability
Good internal consistency (M α = .83)
Good convergent validity with corresponding scales of
Goldberg’s (1992) adjectives and Costa and McCrae’s
(1992) NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO–FFI)
Already adapted into Spanish (Benet-Martinez & John,
1998), German (Lang et al., 2001) and Dutch (Denissen
et al., 2008)

7. Method
Translation and back-translation procedure
821 participants
%F = 57.6
age M = 34.48±15.05 yrs (range 18 – 90)
education M = 14.59±3.38 yrs (range 3 – 27)

8. Overview of analyses
Descriptives
Item analysis
Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Effects of gender, age and educational level modeled
by SEM
Correspondence between factor structure of the
Italian translation with the other versions
Construct validity
BFI-10 reliability and validity
A glance at the future

9. Descriptives
All item means fell in the 2 to 4 range, except:
Item 3: Does a thorough job (C)
Item 7: Is helpful and unselfish with others (A)
Item 10: Is curious about many different things (O)*
Item 12: Starts quarrels with others (A)
Item 13: Is a reliable worker (C)*
Few other items a little bit kurtotic (max -1.24)
SD range was 0.84 – 1.37 → restriction of range was
not a problem
* Same as in Dutch validation (Denissen et al., 2008)

10. Item analysis
r item-
r inter-
Scale No. Min Max M SD SK KU α corrected SMC
item
total
.34 .53 .38
E 8 1.00 5.00 3.30 0.74 -0.18 -0.42 .80
(.06 - .66) (.35 - .68) (.19 - .51)
.19 .35 .18
A 9 1.89 5.00 3.75 0.56 -0.37 -0.12 .66
(.05 - .50) (.26 - .43) (.10 - .31)
.39 .57 .42
C 9 1.44 5.00 3.60 0.76 -0.37 -0.35 .84
(.22 - .61) (.46 - .64) (.22 - .51)
.33 .51 .31
N 8 1.00 5.00 3.11 0.78 -0.01 -0.39 .80
(.21 - .57) (.39 - .62) (.16 - .42)
.29 .48 .31
O 10 1.00 5.00 3.64 0.66 -0.48 0.20 .79
(.03 - .59) (.19 - .59) (.06 - .49)
E A C N O
300 400 300 300 300
350
250 250 250
300
200 200 200 200
250
150 200 150 150
150
100 100 100 100
100
50 50 50
50
0 0 0 0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

11. Exploratory Factor Analysis
Dimensionality assessment
Component MAP statistic
Parallel Analysis 0 .03067
1 .02030
7
2 .01625
6 Observed
99th percentile 3 .01255
5
4 .00947
Eigenvalue
4
5 .00799
3
6 .00785
2
7 .00788
1
8 .00820
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 9 .00914
Component 10 .00952
11 .01047

12. KMO = .85 (Univariate MSA: M = .84, range .69 -.91)
Initial h2: M = .39, range .11 - .57
% of variance accounted for by the 5-factor solution: 43.19
All FLs on the expected factor ≥ .30
Extraction h2: M = .36, range .06 - .64
Correlations
Raw Estimated from PAF/Promax
E A C N O E A C N O
E 1.00 1.00
A .10 1.00 .08 1.00
C .21 .15 1.00 .27 .17 1.00
N -.16 -.11 -.23 1.00 -.10 .04 -.25 1.00
O .28 .07 .14 -.03 1.00 .39 .09 .28 .00 1.00

13. % of variance accounted for by the 6-factor solution: 46.70
All FLs on at least factor ≥ .30
Extraction h2: M = .38, range .06 - .63
Item no. Item
1 Is talkative
6 Is reserved
11 Is full of energy
E1 E2
16 Generates a lot of enthusiasm
21 Tends to be quiet
26 Has an assertive personality
31 Is sometimes shy, inhibited
36 Is outgoing, sociable
E1 E2 A C N O
E1 1.00
E2 .22 1.00
A .08 .10 1.00
C .07 .33 .19 1.00
N -.08 -.06 .04 -.25 1.00
O .20 .39 .12 .14 .02 1.00

14. Confirmatory Factor Analyses
Five Uncorrelated Factors
SB χ2/df = 5.23, TLI*= .79, CFI* = .80, RMSEA = .074, SRMR = .105
E A C N O
Five Correlated Factors
SB χ2/df = 4.97, TLI*= .81, CFI* = .82, RMSEA = .072, SRMR = .083
E A C N O

15. Top 10 Modification Indices
Path Coefficients Error Covariances
Original Suggested Decrease Decrease
Item Items
Factor Factor in X2 in X2
BFI11 E C 85.2 BFI26 BFI11 E 253.9
BFI26 E C 84.2 BFI43 BFI08 C 210.7
BFI06 E C 60.4 BFI44 BFI30 O 148.1
BFI42 A E 52.6 BFI39 BFI19 N 126.4
BFI31 E N 49.8 BFI44 BFI41 O 110.0
BFI26 E O 40.2 BFI25 BFI40 O 109.0
BFI11 E N 37.1 BFI32 BFI07 A 84.8
BFI16 E O 36.4 BFI21 BFI01 E 76.4
BFI04 N E 33.5 BFI41 BFI30 O 76.0
BFI39 N A 33.3 BFI38 BFI28 C 72.4

16. Five Correlated Factors + Social Desirability
SB χ2/df = 3.73, TLI*= .87, CFI* = .88, RMSEA = .059, SRMR = .061
E A C N O
Social Desirability

17. Effects of Gender, Age and Education
SB χ2/df = 4.98, TLI*= .79, CFI* = .80, RMSEA = .072, SRMR = .100
E
Scale Gender Age Education
Age E -.04 .02 -.01
A
A -.17 .17 -.02
C -.13 .29 .14
Education N -.29 -.19 -.09
C
O .04 -.08 .11
Gender Standardized coefficients; F=0, M=1
N
O

18. Correspondence between factor structure of the
Italian translation with the other versions
E A C N O
E .94 .01 .11 -.13 .30
A .07 .94 .15 -.11 .00
Spanish C .16 .15 .93 -.23 .11
N -.18 -.17 -.23 .94 -.16
O .22 .04 .13 -.16 .81
E .92 .10 .14 -.18 .20
A .05 .90 .14 -.13 -.06
US C .19 .13 .95 -.19 .00
N -.27 -.26 -.20 .95 -.16
O .16 -.05 .07 -.11 .80
E .92 .15 .20 -.24 .24
A .04 .93 .14 -.06 .08
Dutch C .22 .18 .95 -.24 .17
N -.24 -.14 -.23 .94 -.01
O .26 .07 .16 -.08 .95
Congruence coefficients of Varimax Rotated Principal Components Loadings

19. BFI-44 Construct validity
E A C N O
BFQ - Energy .56 .00 -.03 -.21 .18
BFQ - E1 - Dynamism .50 .12 .08 -.24 .04
BFQ - E2 - Dominance .49 -.12 -.12 -.14 .27
BFQ - Friendliness .00 .58 .11 -.18 -.13
BFQ - F1 - Cooperativeness -.06 .51 .02 -.13 -.08
BFQ - F2 - Politeness .05 .51 .17 -.19 -.14
BFQ - Conscientiousness .02 .04 .60 -.13 -.15
BFQ - C1 - Perseverance .07 .07 .52 -.07 -.17
BFQ - C2 - Scrupulousness -.03 .01 .53 -.16 -.10
BFQ - Emotional Stability -.19 .08 .10 -.60 -.06
BFQ - ES1 - Emotion Control -.26 .00 .07 -.52 -.19
BFQ - ES2 - Impulse Control -.07 .15 .10 -.54 .09
BFQ - Openness .09 -.04 -.10 -.06 .56
BFQ - O1 - Openness to Culture .13 .01 -.05 -.01 .48
BFQ - O2 - Openness to Experiences .03 -.09 -.12 -.10 .49
BFQ - Lie .05 -.13 .23 .11 -.03
4.50 4.75 4.43 −4.11 4.78
Zcontrast BFQ domains (r)
(.54) (.57) (.57) (.51) (.57)
5.26 5.56 5.40 −4.75 5.66
Zcontrast BFQ facets (r)
(.64) (.64) (.63) (.57) (.65)

20. BFI-10 Item Analysis
Scale Part-whole correlations
E .79
A .65
C .80
N .85
O .78
Rammstedt & John, 2007 n FS × rFS n SF × rSF
Corrected rSF − FS = ×
1 + (n FS − 1) rFS 1 + (n SF − 1)rSF
M SD SK KU α (exp) r rSF-FS
BFI06 2.37 1.20 0.60 -0.58
E .50 (.50) .33 .40
BFI36 3.78 1.11 -0.67 -0.34
BFI02 3.20 1.18 -0.03 -1.05
A .43 (.30) .27 .29
BFI22 3.91 0.91 -0.67 0.28
BFI03 4.06 0.97 -0.98 0.50
C .47 (.54) .33 .42
BFI23 3.04 1.37 -0.02 -1.24
BFI09 3.09 1.23 -0.01 -1.03
N .53 (.50) .37 .43
BFI39 3.26 1.22 -0.25 -0.93
BFI20 3.98 1.03 -0.92 0.34
O .37 (.43) .24 .31
BFI41 3.54 1.30 -0.43 -0.96

21. FIML Estimation
Invariance of the factor structure based on responses to all 44 items in the BFI in
one random subsample (S1) with that based on the 10 items in the BFI-10 for the
other random subsample (S2)
Responses to the remaining 34 unselected items were considered as missing in S2
Invariance constraints were tested for the10 FLs and 10 uniquenesses for items
common to both the BFI-44 and the BFI-10 and for the entire factor variance–
covariance matrix
The 34 factor loadings and 34 uniquenesses for unselected items that only appear
in BFI-44 were freely estimated
Model FIML χ2 df RMSEA
Unconstrained 2620.02 1784 .035
FLs invariant 2623.22 1823 .034
FLs+FVs invariant 2632.53 1828 .034
FLs+FVs+FCors invariant 2666.48 1838 .034
FLs+FVs+FCors + Uniquessess
2681.52 1882 .033
invariant (total invariance)

22. BFI-10 Construct validity
BFI-44
BFQ E A C N O
Energy .64 .25 .59 -.31 .49
Dynamism .68 .28 .62 -.25 .62
Dominance .30 .09 .28 -.25 .11
Friendliness .28 .58 .12 -.33 .17
Cooperativeness .16 .28 .29 -.24 .04
Politeness .33 .72 -.06 -.34 .25
Conscientiousness -.09 -.35 .37 -.10 -.09
Scrupulousness -.13 -.45 .20 -.09 -.12
Perseverance .00 -.07 .47 -.08 -.03
Emotional stability .29 .48 .08 -.66 .01
Emotion Control .30 .33 .13 -.71 -.03
Impulse Control .20 .54 -.01 -.42 .06
Openness .51 .46 .47 -.30 .48
Openness to
.38
Culture .39 .39 .50 -.31
Openness to
.46
Experiences .49 .40 .31 -.22
Lie Scale .30 .15 .10 -.37 .26

23. Conclusions
Italian BFI-44 showed adequate levels of internal consistency,
factorial and external validity, consistent with the psychometric
properties of the English original
High levels of cross-cultural applicability
When the 10 items of the BFI-10 are considered, psychometric
properties appear to be acceptable, even if there were
substantial losses in comparison to the full-scale BFI-44
Future studies
test–retest reliability
agreement between self-reports and peer reports
BFI-10 independent administration

24. A glance at the future – 1
Barbaranelli, 2001
1 1
0,8 0,8
0,6 0,6
0,4 0,4
N N
z scores
z scores
0,2 0,2
E E
0 O 0 O
-0,2 A A
-0,2
C C
-0,4 -0,4
-0,6 -0,6
-0,8 -0,8
-1 -1
Resilient Overcontrolled Undercontrolled Resilient Overcontrolled Non-desirable Undercontrolled

25. A glance at the future – 2
4
3,5
Mean Score *
3
General Population (n = 821)
2,5
PD (n = 32)
2
E A C N O
Scale
* Adjusted for Gender, Age and Education

26. Thank you for your attention
carlo.chiorri@unige.it