title: The Abbreviation of Personality, or how to Measure 200 Personality Scales with 200 Items.
abstract: Personality researchers have recently advocated the use of very short personality inventories in order to minimize administration time. However, few such inventories are currently available. Here I introduce an automated method that can be used to abbreviate virtually any personality inventory with minimal effort. After validating the method against existing measures in Studies 1 and 2, a new 181-item inventory is generated in Study 3 that accurately recaptures scores on 8 different broadband inventories comprising 203 distinct scales. Collectively, the results validate a powerful new way to improve the efficiency of personality measurement in research settings.
authors.affiliation: University of Colorado at Boulder.
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yarkoni