The Journal of Psychology

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The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Brief

Version: Factor Structure and Reliability
Toru Sato
To cite this article: Toru Sato (2005) The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Brief Version:
Factor Structure and Reliability, The Journal of Psychology, 139:6, 545-552, DOI: 10.3200/
JRLP.139.6.545-552
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JRLP.139.6.545-552

Published online: 07 Aug 2010.

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The Journal of Psychology, 2005, 139(6), 545552

Copyright 2005 Heldref Publications

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Brief Version: Factor Structure and
Reliability
TORU SATO
Department of Psychology
Shippensburg University

ABSTRACT. The short scale of the Eysenck Personality QuestionnaireRevised

(EPQRS; H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1992) is a 48-item personality questionnaire primarily designed to measure an individuals level of extraversion (vs. introversion)
and neuroticism. Although L. J. Francis, L. B. Brown, and R. Philipchalk (1992) created
the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire RevisedAbbreviated (EPQRA), an even briefer
version of the EPQRS, the reliability coefficients of some of the measures have been less
than satisfactory (S. Forrest, C. A. Lewis, & M. Shevlin, 2000). Because brevity and reliability are both extremely important, the author of the present study created a briefer version of the EPQRS, more reliable than the EPQRA, by making slight alterations in the
item content as well as the response format of the EPQRS. Two hundred and sixty eight
participants completed the original EPQRS and the 24-item newly revised briefer version of the EPQRS (EPQBV) twice. The findings revealed that the EPQBV has good
internal consistency, testretest reliability, and concurrent validity. A principal component
analysis revealed a solution with factor loadings that accurately reflected the primary
measures of the EPQRS. These findings are discussed in relation to the psychometric
properties of the EPQRA and the original version of the EPQRS.
Key words: assessment, introversionextraversion, neuroticism, personality

THERE ARE THREE CENTRAL SUPERTRAITS essential in understanding

individual differences in personality, according to Eysenck (1990). These personality traits are extraversion (vs. introversion), neuroticism, and psychoticism.
Extraverted individuals naturally have a lower arousal level than do introverts,
which causes extraverted individuals to seek stimulation to raise their arousal level.
In contrast, the naturally high arousal level of introverted individuals causes them
to avoid stimulation as much as possible. This is why introverts tend to like quiet
activities whereas extraverts tend to like stimulating activities (Eysenck, 1990).
Address correspondence to Toru Sato, Department of Psychology, 213 Franklin Science
Center, Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA 17257-2299; tosato@ship.edu (e-mail).
545

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Individuals high in neuroticism tend to have a highly reactive autonomic nervous system, making them emotionally unstable. In contrast, the autonomic nervous systems of individuals who are low in neuroticism are not very reactive, and
they are therefore more emotionally stable (Eysenck, 1990). Individuals high in
psychoticism tend to disregard common sense and behave impulsively (Eysenck,
1990). However, although psychoticism is considered to be the third trait in
Eysencks theory, most interest in this work has focused on extraversion and neuroticism (e.g., Fink & Neubauer, 2004; Geen, 1984; Ramirez-Maestre, Martinez,
& Zarazaga, 2004).
For many years, researchers have continued to carefully develop questionnaires designed to measure individuals on these three personality traits (Eysenck,
1952, 1959; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964, 1975, 1992; Francis, Brown, &
Philipchalk, 1992). These researchers extended their efforts as far as embedding
a Lie Scale into the questionnaire. Since the creation of the original version,
many efforts have been made to revise and improve the questionnaire (Eysenck,
1952, 1959; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964, 1975, 1992). These revisions have typically caused the inclusion of increasingly more items, so that the questionnaire
takes longer to administer.
As a response to this trend, recent researchers have attempted to create
briefer versions for practical purposes (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975, 1992; Francis
et al., 1992). One of the briefer versions is known as the Eysenck Personality
QuestionnaireRevised Short form (EPQRS; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1992). The
EPQRS is a 48-item personality questionnaire primarily designed to measure an
individuals level of extraversion (vs. introversion), neuroticism, and psychoticism. Francis et al. later created the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
RevisedAbbreviated (EPQRA), an even briefer version of the EPQRS.
Although the brevity of this scale makes it very useful, some researchers have
found that the reliability coefficients of the measures (especially the Psychoticism and Lie scales) have been less than satisfactory (Forrest et al., 2000;
Shevlin, Bailey, & Adamson, 2002).
Furthermore, because the original version was created in Great Britain, some
of the items in the EPQRS are more suitable for a British population than for an
American population. Because this measure is also administered in the United
States, it seemed useful to reword some of these items so that the EPQRS would
be suitable for both American and British populations. And because brevity, reliability, and item content are all extremely important factors in the development
of a questionnaire, the goal of the present research project was to create a briefer
version of the EPQRS that would be both suitable to an American population
and more reliable than the EPQRA.
To create this new briefer version (EPQBV), I made a number of adjustments (Sato, 2004). First, the psychoticism measure, which is both rarely used
(e.g., Fink & Neubauer, 2004; Geen, 1984; Ramirez-Maestre et al., 2004) and is
associated with various psychometric problems (Ferrando, 2003; Forrest et al.,

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547

2000), was removed from the scale. Furthermore, because the Lie Scale can be
replaced by embedding items from other scales measuring social desirability if
necessary (e.g., Crowne & Marlowe, 1960), this scale was also eliminated for the
sake of brevity. In addition, the response format was changed from a yesno
response to a 5-point Likert-type scale to increase the reliability of the measures.
Last, because one of the items on the extraversion measure included an expression rarely used in the United States, it was slightly reworded. With the exception of this wording change, the remaining items of the EPQBV were identical
to the Extraversion and Neuroticism scales of the original EPQRS (Eysenck &
Eysenck, 1992). The purpose of the present study was to examine the concurrent
validity, internal consistency, and testretest reliability of the EPQBV.
Method
Participants
A total of 309 (129 men, 177 women, 3 unspecified) undergraduate university students participated in this study. Of the original 309 participants, I
obtained data that was complete and suitable for analysis from 268 (98 men, 168
women, 2 unspecified) of them (see procedure section for details). The mean age
of the 268 participants was 19.4 years.
Measures
The EPQRS form is a questionnaire that consists of three measures corresponding to the three personality traits in Eysencks (1990) theory plus a lie scale
(Eysenck & Eysenck, 1992). Each of the four measures contains 12 items. There
are 2 reversed items in the extraversion measure, 7 reversed items in the psychoticism measure, and 9 reversed items in the Lie Scale. There are no reversed items in
the neuroticism measure. The response format for all items is dichotomous (yes or
no). With the exception of the psychoticism measure, all measures have good internal consistency and testretest reliability (see Eysenck & Eysenck, 1992).
The EPQBV is a newly revised version of the EPQRS to measure individuals on two primary personality traits in Eysencks (1990) theory. It consists
of two measures, one for extraversion and one for neuroticism. The psychoticism
and lie measures are not included in the EPQBV.
In addition to these changes, to increase internal consistency, I changed the
response format of the EPQ-BV from a yesno format to a 5-point Likert-type
scale with responses ranging from not at all (1), slightly (2), moderately (3), very
much (4), to extremely (5). Last, because one of the items for the extraversion
measure included an expression rarely used in the United States, it was slightly
reworded. The word bustle in the item Do you like plenty of bustle and excitement around you? is a term rarely used in United States. Therefore, this item

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was changed to Do you like plenty of action and excitement around you? With
the exception of this wording change, the remaining items are identical to the
Extraversion and Neuroticism scales of the original EPQRS (Eysenck &
Eysenck, 1992). The final version of the EPQBV consists of 24 items (12 extraversion and 12 neuroticism).
Procedure
The entire data collection process continued for 5 weeks. The questionnaires
were completed in three sessions separated by 2 weeks between each session. In
the first session, participants were randomly divided into two groups. In the first
group, 153 undergraduate university students completed the EPQRS. In the second group, 156 undergraduate university students completed the EPQBV. Participants in both groups signed a consent form prior to completing the questionnaire in the first session. In the second session, 143 students who had completed
the EPQRS in the first session completed the EPQBV, and 147 students who
completed the EPQBV in the first session completed the EPQRS. In the third
and final session, 271 of the participants who had completed the questionnaires
in both previous sessions completed the EPQBV once again. All the participants
were fully debriefed after the third session. Of the 271 participants with complete
data, 3 scored 6 or higher on the Lie Scale of the EPQRS. The data of these participants were omitted in all subsequent analyses.
Results
An examination of the order effect of the questionnaires administered in the
first two sessions (using t tests) did not yield any significant effects. The coefficient alphas for the Extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychoticism, and Lie scales in
the EPQRS were .80, .78, 59, and .73, respectively. The coefficient alphas for
the Extraversion and Neuroticism scales in the EPQBV were .92 and .90,
respectively. The testretest reliability values of the two scales of the EPQBV
used in the present study were .92 for both the extraversion and neuroticism measures. Consistent with most research concerning the extraversion and neuroticism measures (e.g., Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985; Francis, 1993), t tests
revealed that there were no significant gender differences on the Extraversion
Scale, but women scored higher than men on the Neuroticism Scale on both the
EPQRS, t(262) = 4.08, p < .01, and the EPQBV, t(262) = 4.21, p < .01.
To test the concurrent validity of the new measures in the EPQBV, I examined the correlations between the new measures and the corresponding original
measures. The results of the correlation analyses are reported in Table 1. The
measures of the EPQBV were highly correlated (.88 and .89) with the corresponding measures in the original EPQRS. The correlations between extraversion and neuroticism ranged between .25 and .29.

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549

TABLE 1. Correlations Between the Measures of the EPQBV and EPQRS

(N = 290)
Variable
1. Extraversion EPQBV
2. Neuroticism EPQBV
3. Extraversion EPQRS
4. Neuroticism EPQRS

1.00

.25*
1.00

.89*
.25*
1.00

.29*
.88*
.25*
1.00

Note. EPQBV = Eysenck Personality QuestionnaireBrief Version; EPQRS = Eysenck

Personality Questionnaire RevisedShort form.
*p < .001.

I conducted a principal components analysis on all items in the EPQBV

administered in the third session. An examination of the scree plot of eigenvalues revealed that the curve leveled off after the first two factors. These two factors (both with eigenvalues above 4) were retained, and I then conducted an
oblique rotation factor analysis restricted to two factors. The two factors combined accounted for approximately 51.8% of the total variance. Factor loadings
generated by these analyses are presented in Table 2. All of the 24 items loaded
above .48 on one of the two factors.
The first factor accounted for approximately 31.4% of the variance. All 12
items loading on this factor were the items intended to measure extraversion.
The factor loadings for all of the items in this factor were .60 or above (see
Table 2). As expected, all items for the neuroticism measure loaded lower than
.30 on this first factor. Furthermore, the reworded extraversion item, Do you
like plenty of action and excitement around you? also loaded highly on this
factor (factor loading of .73). The second factor accounted for approximately
20.4% of the variance. It consisted of all 12 items intended to measure neuroticism. Item loadings for all the items in this factor were .48 or above (see Table
2). As expected, all items for the extraversion measure loaded lower than .30 on
this second factor.
Discussion
In the present study, the coefficient alphas for the Extraversion and Neuroticism scales in the EPQBV were higher than those of the original EPQRS.
These values were also higher than values reported for the EPQRS and the
EPQRA in the past (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1992; Francis et al., 1992). The coefficient alphas for the Extraversion and Neuroticism scales of the EPQRS are
typically in the .78 to .87 and .79 to .83 range, respectively (Eysenck & Eysenck,

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TABLE 2. Factor Loadings for Items on EPQBV

Item
Are you a talkative person?
Are you rather lively?
Do you enjoy meeting new people?
Can you usually let yourself go and
enjoy yourself at a lively party?
Do you usually take the initiative in
making new friends?
Can you easily get some life into a
rather dull party?
Do you tend to keep in the background
on social occasions?
Do you like mixing with people?
Do you like to plenty of action and
excitement around you?
Are you mostly quiet when you are
with other people?
Do other people think of you as being
very lively?
Can you get a party going?
Does you mood often go up and down?
Do you ever feel miserable for no
reason?
Are you an irritable person?
Are your feelings easily hurt?
Do you often feel "fed-up"?
Would you call yourself a nervous
person?
Are you a worrier?
Would you call yourself tense or
highly-strung?
Do you worry too long after an
embarrassing experience?
Do you suffer from nerves?
Do you often feel lonely?
Are you often troubled about feelings
of guilt?

Item #

Factor 1
Extraversion

Factor 2
Neuroticism

1
3
5

.731
.814
.626

.014
.072
.250

.760

.240

.729

.126

11

.841

.139

13
15

.608
.693

.291
.252

17

.733

.101

19

.656

.202

21
23
2

.776
.849
.105

.043
.150
.732

4
6
8
10

.081
.120
.150
.103

.656
.647
.665
.696

12
14

.191
.227

.772
.757

16

.049

.712

18
20
22

.243
.169
.228

.482
.776
.628

24

.087

.704

Note. EPQBV = Eysenck Personality QuestionnaireBrief Version. The 7th and 10th loadings on Factor 1 are reversed scoring items. Bold type indicates the factor on which the item
is loading.

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551

1992; Francis et al., 1992). Depending on the population sampled, the coefficient
alphas for the extraversion and neuroticism measures of the EPQRA are .74 to
.84 and .73 to .77, respectively (Francis et al., 1992). The testretest reliability
values of the two scales of the EPQBV (.92) are comparable to other measures
of extraversion and neuroticism such as the EPQRS (Eysenck & Eysenck,
1992).
The Extraversion Scale of the EPQBV was correlated highly with the
extraversion measure in the original EPQRS. Likewise, the Neuroticism Scale
of the EPQBV was correlated highly with the neuroticism measure in the original EPQRS. These correlations are comparable to the correlations reported
with the measures in the EPQRA by Francis et al. (1992). in which the correlations between the EPQRS and the EPQRA for extraversion and neuroticism
ranged between .92 and .95 and between .92 and .94, respectively. Perhaps the
2- to 4-week time lag in between the two questionnaires contributed to the slightly lower correlations in my present study.
In the present study, the EPQBV correlations between extraversion and
neuroticism were comparable to the correlations typically reported with the measures in the EPQRS and the EPQRA. Although there has been much variability, the correlations between extraversion and neuroticism typically range
between .01 and .37 (Aluja, Garcia, & Garcia, 2003; Eysenck & Eysenck,
1992; Francis et al., 1992; Shevlin et al., 2002).
To examine its factor structure, I conducted a principal components analysis
on the EPQBV. The results revealed a solution with factor loadings accurately
reflecting the primary measures of the EPQRS (extraversion and neuroticism).
Although further replication using wider populations is necessary, the EPQBV,
which takes less than 5 minutes to complete, seems to have high internal consistency, testretest reliability, and a relatively robust factor structure. The next step
for these new measures is to examine their convergent and divergent validity. For
instance, examining individuals who score high and low on the extraversion
measure in response to varying levels of sensory stimulation may be useful in
examining the convergent validity of that measure.
Overall, despite the fact the further examination of the EPQBV is necessary, this briefer version consisting of the most commonly used measures of the
original EPQRS (extraversion & neuroticism) with only half of the number of
items may serve as a suitable alternative for use in elaborate research that consists of additional experimental and time-consuming procedures.
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Original manuscript received July 8, 2004

Final revision accepted December 28, 2004