Interpersonal Circumplex – 32 Item

The IPIP-IPC (Markey & Markey, 2009) is a 32-item public-domain measure of the interpersonal circumplex: eight octant scales, from Assured-Dominant through Warm-Agreeable to Aloof-Introverted, arranged around the two axes of agency and communion. Interpersonal style is read from the whole octant profile rather than any single scale.

Each 4-item octant is scored in its keyed direction; the result page renders the profile as a circumplex diagram, and the norms section of this page lists the per-octant reference values.

The notes below are reproduced from the platform's psychometrics register for this instrument — the same source-cited reliability, validity, and norms text that accompanies its downloadable report.

Internal consistency for the 4-item octant scales ranges from Cronbach's alpha .50 to .77 across octants; the higher-order dominance and love dimensions reach alpha .84–.86 (Markey & Markey, 2009).

The IPIP-IPC shows good convergent validity with peer ratings and the Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R), and the factor structure reproduces the expected circumplex geometry (Markey & Markey, 2009).

Norms computed from the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (ESCS; Goldberg, Harvard Dataverse doi:10.7910/DVN/UF52WY) on the identical items and keying, summed 4–20 octant metric, complete cases. Five octants are normed: Assured-Dominant M = 8.61 (SD = 3.14, N = 795); Arrogant-Calculating M = 8.06 (SD = 2.95, N = 795); Aloof-Introverted M = 11.64 (SD = 3.36, N = 600); Warm-Agreeable M = 16.54 (SD = 2.26, N = 795); Gregarious-Extraverted M = 12.85 (SD = 3.48, N = 600). The remaining octants (Cold-Hearted, Unassured-Submissive, Unassuming-Ingenuous) are not reproducible from the ESCS item pool and report percent-of-maximum only.

“Demand to be the center of interest”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a population percentile against the cited reference sample, with a reliability-based confidence range where α is published.

Norms computed from the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (ESCS) — Lewis R. Goldberg’s adult community panel from Eugene and Springfield, Oregon (Harvard Dataverse, doi:10.7910/DVN/UF52WY). This is a community sample and is NOT nationally representative. The mean, standard deviation, reference N and Cronbach’s α were computed directly from the raw IPIP item-level responses on THIS scale’s exact item set and reverse-keying (complete cases); reference N varies by scale and is shown with each scale below. The confidence range uses the standard error of measurement (SEM = SD·√(1−α)) from that computed α.

Markey, P. M., & Markey, C. N. (2009). A brief assessment of the interpersonal circumplex: The IPIP-IPC. Assessment, 16(4), 352–361.