title: Integrating competing dimensional models of personality: linking the SNAP, TCI, and NEO using Item Response Theory.
abstract: Mounting evidence suggests that several inventories assessing both normal personality and personality disorders measure common dimensional personality traits (i.e., Antagonism, Constraint, Emotional Instability, Extraversion, and Unconventionality), albeit providing unique information along the underlying trait continuum. We used Widiger and Simonsen's (2005) pantheoretical integrative model of dimensional personality assessment as a guide to create item pools. We then used Item Response Theory (IRT) to compare the assessment of these five personality traits across three established dimensional measures of personality: the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). We found that items from each inventory map onto these five common personality traits in predictable ways. The IRT analyses, however, documented considerable variability in the item and test information derived from each inventory. Our findings support the notion that the integration of multiple perspectives will provide greater information about personality while minimizing the weaknesses of any single instrument.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, 3811 O'Hara St., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. steppsd@upmc.edu
authors.forename: Stephanie D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Stepp
authors.forename: Lan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Joshua D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Michael N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Hallquist
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Trull
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Pilkonis
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002605:Character; D005120:Extraversion, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011594:Psychometrics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D013694:Temperament