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Zusammenfassung. Die zunehmende Etablierung des Fünf-Faktoren-Modells der Persönlichkeit hat zur Folge, dass die so genannten “Big Five“ vermehrt auch in Anwendungskontexten erhoben werden sollen. Da jedoch gerade in diesen Bereichen die Untersuchungszeit oft stark begrenzt ist, sind die herkömmlichen Verfahren zur Erfassung der fünf Faktoren oft zu umfangreich. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde deshalb ein Fragebogen, das BFI-K, entwickelt, das mit 21 Items bzw. einer durchschnittlichen Bearbeitungsdauer unter 2 Minuten als extrem ökonomisch angesehen werden kann. Die Ergebnisse belegen zufriedenstellende psychometrische Kennwerte für das BFI-K. Neben ausreichenden Reliabilitäten konnten sowohl die faktorielle Validität des Verfahrens als auch hohe Übereinstimmungen mit Bekanntenurteilen und mit anderen etablierten Verfahren zu Erfassung des Fünf-Faktoren-Modells bestätigt werden.

Previous findings suggest that the Big-Five factor structure is not guaranteed in samples with lower educational levels. The present study investigates the Big-Five factor structure in two large samples representative of the German adult population. In both samples, the Big-Five factor structure emerged only in a blurry way at lower educational levels, whereas for highly educated persons it emerged with textbook-like clarity. Because well-educated persons are most comparable to the usual subjects of psychological research, it might be asked if the Big Five are limited to such persons. Our data contradict this conclusion. There are strong individual differences in acquiescence response tendencies among less highly educated persons. After controlling for this bias the Big-Five model holds at all educational levels. KeywordsBig Five; measurement equivalence; acquiescence response bias; factor structure In personality psychology, most research is based on samples of college students, especially undergraduates taking a course in psychology. This narrow subject population leads to the question of the extent to which the findings from such studies can be generalized to a broader population. Expressed in a more formal way: Are multi-item personality inventories transportable in the sense of measurement equivalence over subsamples of the population? If measurement equivalence (Vandenberg & Lance, 2000;Drasgow & Probst, 2004) does not hold for specific subsamples, it becomes dubious to compare the scale scores of persons from these different subsamples, because their scores are indicators of constructs that differ in terms of their structure and, thus, ultimately also in their meaning.Over the last two decades, the Big Five factors have become the most prominent model for describing the structure of personality traits. The Big Five have been found to replicate across different methods of data collection such as self-ratings, peer ratings, and behavioral descriptions, as well as across at least some different languages and cultures. However, personality research is still largely based on the typical "psych 100" student samples, which suggests that test norms may be inappropriate for other samples of individuals. Moreover, even the assumed five-factor structure may not hold in general. Indeed, several researchersEditorial correspondence concerning this manuscript should be addressed to Beatrice Rammstedt, GESIS -Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, PO-Box 12 21 55, D-68072 Mannheim, Germany. beatrice.rammstedt@gesis.org. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. i...

Abstract. The present study investigates the validity and utility of the German adaptations of the two short forms of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), the 30-item BFI-2-S, and the 15-item BFI-2-XS, developed by Soto and John (2017b) . Both scales assess the Big Five domains. The BFI-2-S allows, in addition, the brief assessment of three facets per domain. Based on a large and heterogeneous sample, we show that the psychometric properties of these adapted short scales are consistent with those of the Anglo-American source versions, and we demonstrate substantial convergence between the adaptations and the source versions. Extending the original scale development study, we demonstrate high retest stability of the scales and their facets. Our results clearly indicate the construct and criterion validity of the two scales: Both show substantial convergence with the NEO-PI-R domain scales. Moreover, the distinctive correlation pattern found between the facets of the BFI-2 and the NEO-PI-R could be replicated for the facets of the BFI-2-S. Furthermore, we show that the domain scales of both instruments are associated in the hypothesized directions with important life outcomes, such as life satisfaction and intelligence, and that the facets of the BFI-2-S have incremental validity for predicting these outcomes.

Aim Personality traits and cognitive ability are well‐established predictors of academic performance. Yet, how consistent and generalizable are the associations between personality, cognitive ability, and performance? Building on theoretical arguments that trait–performance relations should vary depending on the demands and opportunities for trait expression in the learning environment, we investigated whether the associations of personality (Big Five) and cognitive ability (fluid intelligence) with academic performance (grades and tests scores) vary across school subjects (German and math) and across ability‐grouped school tracks (academic, intermediate, and vocational). Method Multiple group structural equation models in a large representative sample of ninth‐grade students (N = 12,915) from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Results Differential associations across school subjects emerged for cognitive ability, Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness (math > German); and for Openness and Extraversion (German > math). Differential associations across school tracks emerged for cognitive ability, Conscientiousness (academic > intermediate > vocational) and Agreeableness (academic > intermediate > vocational). Personality traits explained more variation in academic performance in the academic than in the other tracks. Conclusion Most trait–performance relations varied across subjects, tracks, or both. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced and context‐minded perspective on trait–performance relations.

Acquiescence, or the tendency to respond to descriptions of conceptually distinct personality attributes with agreement/affirmation (acceptance acquiescence) or disagreement/opposition (counter-acquiescence), has been widely recognized as a source of bias that can substantially alter interitem correlations within scales. Acquiescence is also known to operate differently among some groups of persons; it is, for example, more pronounced among individuals with less formal education. Consequently, the biasing effects of acquiescence are of particular concern when the dimensionality underlying the item set of a measure is examined with representative samples comprised of persons with varying levels of educational attainment and evaluated with correlation-based statistical methods such as factor analysis. In the present study, we extended our earlier research by investigating the biasing effect of acquiescence on personality factor structures derived from the full-scale version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI) when administered to a large sample (N = 1,427) selected to be representative of Germany's adult population. Consistent with previous findings based on a short-scale version of the BFI, factor analyses of the unadjusted BFI item set failed to replicate the expected Big Five-factor structure in the low/medium and high educational groups, with distortions in factor structure more pronounced in the former group. Once acquiescence was controlled in the item responses for both groups, however, the obtained factor structures were consistent with the Big Five framework. The implications of acquiescence on the evaluation of the factor structure of personality inventories and for the validity of personality assessments are discussed.

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