Narrow-Trait Composites

This 247-item collection measures 45 narrow traits — specific dispositions such as 'No Somatic Complaints', 'Likes Crowds', 'Math Ability', and 'Impression Management' — each with its own short public-domain IPIP scale. In Goldberg's master map these scales correspond to the homogeneous item composites (HICs) of the Hogan Personality Inventory: the small, single-theme item clusters from which the HPI's primary scales are assembled (Hogan & Hogan, 1992).

The HIC is the HPI's structural signature. Instead of writing one long scale per construct, Hogan composed each broad dimension from several homogeneous item composites — a handful of items each, all restating one narrow theme — so a profile can be read at two levels of resolution: the broad dimension, and the specific habits underneath it (Hogan & Hogan, 1992).

Measuring at the narrow level has its own psychometric logic: short, single-theme scales give up the reliability of long composites but gain descriptive specificity, and in public-domain form they double as building blocks from which researchers can assemble custom composites (Goldberg et al., 2006). This collection is the IPIP's catalogue of those building blocks.

The scales here are original public-domain IPIP items keyed to constructs similar to the HPI's HICs; scores here are not scores on the Hogan Personality Inventory or its internal composites, and HPI-based interpretation does not transfer to this form. Scale membership and reverse-keying follow Goldberg's IPIP multi-scale map (ScalesFor967items) verbatim, with construct names as catalogued at ipip.ori.org.

Because some of these scales are very short, subscales whose computed reliability in the Eugene–Springfield Community Sample falls below the platform's floor carry an explicit low-reliability caution beside their percentile in the norms section rather than a silently precise-looking standing.

“Accept apologies easily.”

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. Subscales whose computed α is below 0.50 — or single-item scales, where α is undefined — carry an explicit low-reliability caution next to the percentile.

Public-domain items from the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, L. R., 1999; ipip.ori.org). Scale membership and reverse-keying taken verbatim from Goldberg's IPIP multi-scale map (ScalesFor967items). Construct names from ipip.ori.org.