Short and extra-short forms of the Big Five Inventory–2: The BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS

Abstract The Big Five Inventory–2 (BFI-2) uses 60 items to hierarchically assess the Big Five personality domains and 15 more-specific facet traits. The present research develops two abbreviated forms of the BFI-2—the 30-item BFI-2-S and the 15-item BFI-2-XS—and then examines their measurement properties. At the level of the Big Five domains, we find that the BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS retain much of the full measure’s reliability and validity. At the facet level, we find that the BFI-2-S may be useful for examining facet traits in reasonably large samples, whereas the BFI-2-XS should not be used to assess facets. Finally, we discuss some key tradeoffs to consider when deciding whether to administer an abbreviated form instead of the full BFI-2.

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