IPIP-NEO-60 Personality Inventory

The IPIP-NEO-60 (Maples-Keller et al., 2019) is a 60-item form of the public-domain IPIP-NEO family: its authors applied item response theory to the 300-item IPIP representation of the NEO PI-R to select two items per facet, keeping all five domains and thirty facets of the Five Factor Model covered at a fraction of the length.

The lineage runs in three steps. Costa and McCrae's NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) defined the thirty-facet, five-domain hierarchy and anchored it in validation work across instruments and observers (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Goldberg (1999) recreated that construct coverage in the open with the 300-item IPIP-NEO, part of the broader public-domain measurement program described by Goldberg et al. (2006). Maples-Keller and colleagues (2019) then compressed the pool psychometrically, producing a 60-item instrument with reliability and validity evidence reported for both facet and domain levels.

As with the longer forms, what is administered here is the public-domain representation, not the proprietary instrument: original IPIP statements keyed to constructs similar to the NEO PI-R's facets, so scores here are not scores on the NEO PI-R and its norms do not apply to this form.

On this platform each domain score aggregates its member facets, and both levels are shown with reference values in the norms section. With only two items per leaf facet, individual facet scores are necessarily coarser than the domain scores — a length trade-off inherent to any 60-item FFM profile.

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.

Maples-Keller et al. (2019) report good internal consistency for the 30 facets (median alpha ≈ .64 for 2-item scales) and the 5 domain composites (median alpha ≈ .79 for 12-item scales) in a college sample.

Facet and domain scales show good convergent validity with the NEO PI-R (mean facet r ≈ .63), confirming that the abbreviated 2-item facet format retains meaningful signal despite brevity. The five-domain structure replicates the standard Big Five model (Maples-Keller et al., 2019).

Scores are expressed as percent-of-maximum on the 1–5 accuracy scale. No large general-population normative tables exist for this specific 60-item form; scores are interpreted relative to the scale midpoint using Higher/Average/Lower bands.

“Worry about things.”

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.

Maples-Keller, J. L., Williamson, R. L., Sleep, C. E., Carter, N. T., Campbell, W. K., & Miller, J. D. (2017). Using item response theory to develop a 60-item representation of the NEO-PI-R: The IPIP-NEO-60. Journal of Personality Assessment. Items drawn from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg et al., 2006; ipip.ori.org).