[Personality assessment with the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory: the 30-Item-Short-Version (NEO-FFI-30)]

Over these past years, German researchers have shown much interest for Costa and McCrae's five factor model as well as for their instrument: the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory . Nevertheless, results from a recent survey study using the German version of the NEO-FFI on a representative population sample (n = 1908) have reported problems to replicate the factor structure of the instrument. Insufficient psychometric indices of single items led to partly unsatisfactory scale values. A logical consequence of this was the development of a short version of the instrument with better psychometric properties. This article reports item and scale values of the NEO-FFI-30 for the German population sample. The five scales reach good internal consistency and are highly correlated with the original NEO-FFI scales. Furthermore, the influence of sociodemographic variables and correlations with the Giessentest appear to be very similar for both the original instrument and the short version. Moreover, the factor structure was replicated in an independent sample of 2508 adults. Results confirm the reliability, and factor and construct validity of this economic instrument without any significant loss in information.