CALIFORNIA PERSONALITY INVENTORY

(a.k.a, California Psychological Inventory; CPI).

Description of Measure:

A 472-item measure of personality (revised versions are shorter) designed to assess mentally healthy individuals’ personality characteristics. Each item is answered as either “True” or “False”. About 50% of the items from the CPI were taken directly from the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943).

The CPI is divided into the following scales:

Dominance	36 items	Good Impression	40 items
Capacity for Status	28 items	Communality	38 items
Sociability	32 items	Well-Being	38 items
Social Presence	38 items	Tolerance	32 items
Self Acceptance	28 items	Achievement via	38 items
Independence	30 items	Conformance
Empathy	38 items	Achievement via	36 items
Responsibility	36 items	Independence
Socialization	46 items	Intellectual Efficiency	42 items
Self Control	38 items	Psychological	28 items

Female/Male                32 items              Mindedness

Flexibility                     28 items The entire test takes approximately 50-60 minutes to finish.

Abstracts of Selected Related Articles:

Both the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1987) and the five-factor model of personality have roots in folk concepts of personality. The present article offers a conceptual analysis of CPI scales in terms of the five-factor model. In the first study, judges rated the item content of CPI scales in terms of the five factors. In the second, CPI scales were correlated with the factors as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b) in a sample of 348 men and women ages 19 to 92. Both studies showed meaningful links between CPI scales and four of the factors; Agreeableness appeared to be underrepresented in CPI scales. The utility of systematic rational item analysis in terms of the five factors and the evolving relation of folk concepts to psychological constructs are discussed.

Personality research methods are examined from a historical perspective, beginning with a review of scholarly resources. Five historical periods in personality research are demarcated: the pre-identity era, the pre-WWII era, the post-WWII era, the contemporary era, & the current situation. Three types in the historical development of methodologies are identified: laboratory methods, observer judgments, personality scales, & projective techniques illustrate continued development; biographical/archival methods & field studies illustrate interrupted methods; & reputational analysis using naturalistic observational assessment illustrates arrested development. Recommendations for promoting integrative methodological pluralism in research planning, institutional arrangements, & graduate training are made.

Two existing bodies of data were examined using model-fitting procedures. The very large Swedish twin study showed evidence of differences in heritability for the sexes and for three birth cohorts, but not for the two personality scales in the study—Swedish versions of Eysenck’s Extraversion and Neuroticism Scales. Using the data of the National Merit twin sample, seven orthogonal factor scales were derived from the California Psychological Inventory item pool. Statistically significant differences were found across the seven scales, for both heritability and the effects of common family environment. It was concluded that differences in the heritability of personality scales may be found if one extends the search to lesser personality dimensions independent of Extraversion and Neuroticism, and it was suggested that earlier difficulties in demonstrating differential heritability may have resulted from the pervasive influence of the two major factors on the scales of typical personality inventories.

Scale:

The CPI is available for purchase.

Reference: