International Personality Item Pool

What is the International Personality Item Pool?

Research highlights the significant role personality traits play in life outcomes, with predictive validity observed across both subjective domains, such as relationships, positive emotions, and well-being, as well as objective factors, including income and educational attainment (Rabiu, 2020; Roberts et al., 2007).

The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) is a widely-used and reliable personality assessment tool designed to measure the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality. This model is divided into five broad traits, each further refined into six facets, offering a nuanced approach to personality analysis. These facets capture the multidimensional nature of each trait, enhancing the precision of assessments.

The Five-Factor Model and their respective facets are as follows (Johnson, 2014):

Openness

Openness reflects an individual's preference for imagination, creativity, and novel experiences versus conventional and grounded thinking.
Facets: Imagination, artistic interests, emotionality, adventurousness, intellect, and liberalism.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness measures an individual's ability to regulate impulses and stay goal-oriented.
Facets: Self-efficacy, dutifulness, orderliness, self-discipline, achievement striving, and cautiousness.

Extraversion

Extraversion assesses how outgoing and socially oriented a person is.
Facets: Friendliness, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity level, excitement seeking, and cheerfulness.

Agreeableness

Agreeableness reflects an individual's tendency to prioritize social harmony, cooperation, and empathy over confrontation.
Facets: Trust, morality, altruism, cooperation, modesty, and sympathy.

Neuroticism

Neuroticism captures the extent to which an individual experiences negative emotions and emotional instability.
Facets: Anxiety, anger, depression, self-consciousness, immoderation, and vulnerability.

By incorporating these traits and facets, the IPIP provides a detailed framework for understanding personality, facilitating research and practical applications in diverse fields.

How to use our International Personality Item Pool template

Our free International Personality Item Pool template is easy to use and printable. Follow these steps to get started:

Step 1: Download the template

Access the International Personality Item Pool template by clicking "Use template", allowing you to edit the resource via the Carepatron app. For a PDF copy, choose "Download."

Step 2: Familiarize yourself with the template

The template is designed to guide you through the International Personality Item Pool, which includes space for essential patient information. The template follows the standard International Personality Item Pool, composed of 120 items, each relating to one of the five factors: Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Step 3: Ask the patient to complete

Give the template to the patient to complete, ensuring that they fill out their personal details. Before completion, emphasize that these are subjective questions. Explain that it is crucial to provide honest answers in order to attain an accurate result. Be sure to guide the individual through the template, helping them with questions if necessary whilst ensuring not to suggest any answers.

Step 4: Score their answers

Calculate the individual's score by following the instructions below.

Scoring

The International Personality Item Pool assessment consists of 120 items designed to evaluate personality traits across five major factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each item corresponds to one of these factors and is further categorized into specific facet traits. The scoring process involves a 1–5 Likert scale, with items either positively or negatively keyed to ensure balanced measurement.

Positive and negative keyed items

Each item in the International Personality Item Pool is scored on a 1–5 Likert scale, with scoring dependent on whether the item is positively or negatively keyed.

For positively keyed items, the following scoring is applied:

• Very inaccurate = 1
• Moderately inaccurate = 2
• Neither inaccurate nor accurate = 3
• Moderately accurate = 4
• Very accurate = 5

For negatively keyed items, the scoring is reversed:

• Very inaccurate = 5
• Moderately inaccurate = 4
• Neither inaccurate nor accurate = 3
• Moderately accurate = 2
• Very accurate = 1

Personality factors

The items in the International Personality Item Pool are also divided into five personality factors, each further categorized into six facet traits. Each facet is represented by four specific items in the questionnaire.

• For Openness, the facets and corresponding item numbers are as follows: Imagination (3, 33, 63, 93), Artistic Interests (8, 38, 68, 98), Emotionality (13, 43, 73, 103), Adventurousness (18, 48, 78, 108), Intellect (23, 53, 83, 113), and Liberalism (28, 58, 88, 118). These facets explore an individual's creativity, curiosity, and willingness to embrace new experiences.
• The Conscientiousness factor is measured by the facets of Self-Efficacy (5, 35, 65, 95), Orderliness (10, 40, 70, 100), Dutifulness (15, 45, 75, 105), Achievement Striving (20, 50, 80, 110), Self-Discipline (25, 55, 85, 115), and Cautiousness (30, 60, 90, 120). These facets reflect an individual's ability to organize, plan, and regulate impulses.
• The Extraversion factor encompasses traits related to sociability and energy. The facets include Friendliness (2, 32, 62, 92), Gregariousness (7, 37, 67, 97), Assertiveness (12, 42, 72, 102), Activity Level (17, 47, 77, 107), Excitement Seeking (22, 52, 82, 112), and Cheerfulness (27, 57, 87, 117).
• For Agreeableness, the facets are Trust (4, 34, 64, 94), Morality (9, 39, 69, 99), Altruism (14, 44, 74, 104), Cooperation (19, 49, 79, 109), Modesty (24, 54, 84, 114), and Sympathy (29, 59, 89, 119). These traits represent an individual's tendency to prioritize social harmony, kindness, and empathy in their interactions.
• Finally, Neuroticism examines an individual's emotional stability and vulnerability to stress. The facets include Anxiety (1, 31, 61, 91), Anger (6, 36, 66, 96), Depression (11, 41, 71, 101), Self-Consciousness (16, 46, 76, 106), Immoderation (21, 51, 81, 111), and Vulnerability (26, 56, 86, 116).

Total score

To calculate the total score for the IPIP assessment, sum the scores for all 120 items after applying the appropriate keying. This aggregate score reflects the overall personality profile based on the responses provided.

Next steps after using the International Personality Item Pool

The International Personality Item Pool assessment provides a structured framework for evaluating personality traits, offering valuable insights into an individual's characteristics and tendencies. However, interpreting and applying these results requires careful consideration to ensure they are meaningful and beneficial. Below are the recommended steps for professionals to maximize the utility of the IPIP assessment.

Review results

Identify patterns within the 5 personality traits for the understanding of patients' broad traits; for a more comprehensive assessment, identify patterns within facets. This can be done in both mental health settings and non-clinical environments to help practitioners gain insight into aspects of an individual’s personality.

Discuss results with patient

Professionals can open a sensitive and nonjudgmental conversation to discuss the results. The professional will try to get a well-rounded understanding of the patient, considering the broader context of the person and the social determinants surrounding them.

The results can be used as an aid for clinical formulations, this can help to guide professionals in targeted interventions that are specific to the individual and their needs. It can also be used alongside other psychological assessment tools to further aid clinical formulations. 

References

Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the five factor model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003

Rabiu, A. M. (2020). Personality and subjective well-being: Towards personalized persuasive interventions for health and well-being. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v12i1.10335

Roberts, B. W., Kuncel, N. R., Shiner, R., Caspi, A., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 313–345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00047.x