The Development of a Big Five Adolescent Personality Inventory

Abstract

Using data from 3,752 middle and high school students, a series of eight studies developed and validated a measure of the Big Five personality traits tailored to adolescents, the Adolescent Personal Style Inventory (APSI). Study 1 tested the internal consistency reliability of the first version of the APSI. Study 2 validated the APSI against teacher ratings of Big Five traits. Study 3 confirmed the five-factor structure of the APSI. Study 4 developed evidence for the criterion-related validity of the APSI in two high schools using GPA, absences, and behavior problems. Study 5 demonstrated convergence of traits measured in the APSI and the NEO-FFI. Study 6 investigated the construct validity of the APSI in relation to the 16 PF, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and Otis-Lennon intelligence test. Study 7 examined known-group validation with two groups-an at-risk group of high school students and a high school leadership group. Study 8 provided descriptive statistics, coefficient alphas ranging from .80 to .85, and intercorrelation coefficients for subscales in the revised version of the APSI. Together the eight studies demonstrate the psychometric adequacy of the new Adolescent Personal Style Inventory.

An Investigation of Broad and Narrow Personality Traits in Relation to General and Domain-Specific Life Satisfaction of College Students

“…The APSI is a normal personality inventory contextualized for adolescents and has been used for early, middle, and late adolescents (Jaffe, 1998) from middle school through high school and college. Scale development, norming, reliability, criterionrelated validity, and construct validity information for the APSI can be found in Lounsbury et al (2004a); Lounsbury et al (2003e); Lounsbury, Hutchens and Loveland (in press); Lounsbury, Loveland and Gibson, (2003b) ;Lounsbury, Steel, Loveland and Gibson (2004b); Lounsbury, Sundstrom, Loveland and Gibson, 2003c;and Lounsbury et al (2003e). When considered collectively, the research reported in the preceding works shows that the APSI constructs are internally consistent; where appropriate, they generally display high convergence with common traits on other, widely used personality inventories, including the 16 PF, NEO-PI-R, Myers-Briggs Temperament Inventory; and they significantly predict academic performance (reflected by course grades and cumulative GPA) in all grades from middle school through high school and all class levels in college, teacher ratings of behavior, school absenteeism, adjustment, at-risk behavior, sense of community, leadership, satisfaction in variety of areas, vocational interests, career decidedness, and wide variety of logically related (to specific APSI traits) psychological constructs, such as rule-adherence, vigilance, self-esteem, sensation-seeking, self-actualization, empathy, etc.…”

“…By way of example, Lounsbury, Tatum, Gibson, Park, Sundstrom, Hamrick, and Wilburn (2003e) found that the narrow traits of Aggression and Work Drive added significantly to the prediction of student grade point average above and beyond the Big Five traits. Although we are not aware of any studies which have looked at the incremental validity of narrow traits beyond the Big Five traits in predicting life satisfaction of college students, we do know that a number of narrow personality traits have been related to life satisfaction among adults-including Work Drive, Tough-Mindedness, and Optimism (Lounsbury, Gibson and Hamrick, 2004a;Lounsbury et al, in press) and among college students-including Optimism (Cha, 2003) and Career-Decidedness (Lounsbury, Tatum, Chambers, Owens and Gibson, 1999).…”

Assessing the Five Factors of Personality in Adolescents

“…Furthermore, Allik et al (2004) found better psychometric properties in high-intelligent children than in low-intelligent children, suggesting that the personality structure of 12-year-old highly intelligent children were comparable to the adult personality structure, mainly due to its cognitive capabilities and verbal skills. In addition, when items were carefully adapted to younger ages, e.g., the APSI questionnaire (Lounsbury et al, 2003), the psychometric indices did not differ from those reported in adults. Hence, we consider that accurately adapting items to young adolescents using more comprehensible vocabulary and familiar situations related to underlying facets could solve some of the psychometric problems found with the Pilot JS NEO.…”

“…Different studies found that this questionnaire includes items that prove too difficult to comprehend, or refers to characteristic adaptations that are less suitable for adolescents (De Fruyt et al, 2000;Romero et al, 2002;Sherry et al, 2003). Therefore the utility of adult versions of questionnaires, such as the NEO-PI-R, may not be the best option for assessing youths' personality, especially in early adolescence (Lounsbury et al, 2003).…”

“…The HiPIC assesses 18 facets hierarchically organized under the five second-order dimensions Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Benevolence, Conscientiousness, and Imagination. Specifically developed for teenagers, the Adolescent Personality Style Inventory (APSI; Lounsbury et al, 2003) is another example of a self-report questionnaire that assesses the FFM in children aged [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] years. Although this bottom-up approach has been useful to describe adolescent trait structure, the use of different scales at different ages may make comparisons difficult in developmental studies of temperament and personality.…”