A contemplated revision of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory

Previous item factor analyses and readability analyses suggested that 14 of the 60 items in the NEO Five-Factor Inventory might usefully be replaced. New analyses in high school (N=1959) and adult (N=1492) samples led to the selection of new items from the remaining pool of Revised NEO Personality Inventory items. The resulting scales showed modest improvements in reliability and factor structure, and equivalent validity. These new scales should be appropriate for most respondents age 14 and up. However, continued use of the current instrument is also reasonable for most applications.