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Documentation · 1985

NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI): Foundational Big Five instrument

The first major commercial personality assessment based on the Big Five model. Paul Costa and Robert McCrae at the National Institute on Aging developed the NEO-PI to provide a clinically-usable instrument grounded in the empirically-derived five-factor structure of personality. The NEO-PI-3 (2010) remains the gold-standard Big Five assessment in clinical and research settings.

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About the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)

By the mid-1980s, factor-analytic personality research had converged on a five-factor structure (work by Lewis Goldberg, Robert McCrae, Paul Costa, and others). What was needed was a clinically-usable assessment instrument operationalizing this structure. Paul Costa and Robert McCrae at the National Institute on Aging spent the early 1980s developing such an instrument; the result was the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), published in 1985.

The 1985 NEO-PI initially measured only three of the Big Five factors: Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to experience (hence 'NEO'). The 1992 NEO-PI-R revision added the remaining two factors (Conscientiousness and Agreeableness) and refined the scoring; the 2010 NEO-PI-3 has updated norms.

Each NEO-PI scale has six 'facet' subscales (so each Big Five domain has six narrower subdimensions, totaling 30 facets). This makes the NEO-PI substantially more detailed than briefer Big Five measures like the BFI-10 or BFI-2. The NEO-PI is the most-used research instrument in personality psychology and is widely used in clinical assessment for personality disorders, career counseling, and treatment planning.

Copyright note: NEO-PI items are copyrighted (PAR). Free Big Five assessment is available through the IPIP (International Personality Item Pool) which is public domain.

The 5 subtests

#1
Neuroticism (N) + 6 facets Anxiety, Hostility, Depression, Self-Consciousness, Impulsiveness, Vulnerability.
Copyrighted
#2
Extraversion (E) + 6 facets Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement-Seeking, Positive Emotions.
Copyrighted
#3
Openness (O) + 6 facets Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas, Values.
Copyrighted
#4
Agreeableness (A) + 6 facets Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty, Tender-Mindedness.
Copyrighted
#5
Conscientiousness (C) + 6 facets Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-Discipline, Deliberation.
Copyrighted

Sample Items (Illustrative)

Items in the NEO Personality Inventory are typically presented as statements with a Likert scale response format, ranging from 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree'. Scoring involves summing responses for each facet and domain to assess personality traits.

Sample 1 · Neuroticism - Anxiety
I often feel tense and jittery, even when there is no apparent reason.
Example response: Agree
Sample 2 · Extraversion - Excitement-Seeking
I enjoy seeking out thrilling and adventurous experiences.
Example response: Strongly Agree
Sample 3 · Openness - Aesthetics
I have a deep appreciation for art and beauty in the world around me.
Example response: Agree
Sample 4 · Agreeableness - Trust
I generally believe that most people are trustworthy and honest.
Example response: Agree
Sample 5 · Conscientiousness - Achievement Striving
I set high standards for myself and work hard to achieve my goals.
Example response: Strongly Agree

These are illustrative samples, not actual items from the protected test.

Source

All test materials and historical content on this page are transcribed from:

Paul T. Costa Jr. & Robert R. McCrae (1985). NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI).

NEO-PI, NEO-PI-R, and NEO-PI-3 items are under PAR (Psychological Assessment Resources) copyright. We document the instrument's history.

Cite this page

This page is part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content, transcription notes, and curation are released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). Public-domain primary sources retain their public-domain status. BibTeX · RIS · CSL JSON

Historical test materials are obsolete and are not valid modern IQ assessments. This page is preserved for educational, research, and historiographic purposes.

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