Psychometric Properties of a Revised Version of the Ten Item Personality Inventory

Abstract

Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann (2003) developed the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) to meet the need of very short measures of the Big Five for time-limited contexts or large survey questionnaires. In this paper we show the inadequacy of the Italian version downloadable from Gosling’s website and we report the results of four studies in which the psychometric properties of a revised version (I-TIPI-R) were investigated in student and general population samples. This new version showed adequate factor structure, test-retest reliability, self-observer agreement and convergent and discriminant validity with the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Moreover, I-TIPI-R and BFI scores did not differ in their correlations with measures of affect, self-esteem, optimism, emotion regulation, and social desirability. Overall, the results suggest that the I-TIPI-R can be considered a valid and reliable alternative to the BFI for the assessment of basic personality traits when very short measures are needed.