Premium
The Measurement of Psychoticism: a Study of Factor Stability and Reliability
Author(s) -
EYSENCK S. B. G.,
EYSENCK H. J.
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1968.tb00571.x
Subject(s) - psychoticism , neuroticism , psychology , extraversion and introversion , personality , dimension (graph theory) , social psychology , developmental psychology , big five personality traits , mathematics , pure mathematics
An investigation is reported into the measurement of the personality dimension P (psychoticism), which has emerged from factorial and other empirical studies as a third dimension additional to E (extraversion) and N (neuroticism.) Large groups of normal men and women, and of male and female students, were administered an inventory containing 106 potential P, E and N items, and the results analysed in detail. It emerges that P, E and N factors are found, as predicted, in the factor analysis of the data; that reliable scales can be constructed from the available items for P; and that the factors found are relatively invariant from one sex to the other, and from one sample to others. It appears that N and P are not entirely independent, but correlate to a moderate extent. It is suggested that P might be a personality variable of interest in connexion with many experimental investigations; that it might determine differential performance, either alone or in conjunction with E and/or N; and that experimental studies of P in normal subjects might throw much needed light on the nature and meaning of psychoticism as a personality variable.