The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) is a self-reported personality test developed over several decades of empirical research by Raymond B. Cattell, Maurice Tatsuoka and Herbert Eber. The 16PF provides a measure of personality and can also be used by psychologists, and other mental health professionals, as a clinical instrument to help diagnose psychiatric disorders, and help with prognosis and therapy planning. The 16PF can also provide information relevant to the clinical and counseling process, such as an individual's capacity for insight, self-esteem, cognitive style, internalization of standards, openness to change, capacity for empathy, level of interpersonal trust, quality of attachments, interpersonal needs, attitude toward authority, reaction toward dynamics of power, frustration tolerance, and coping style. Thus, the 16PF instrument provides clinicians with a normal-range measurement of anxiety, adjustment, emotional stability and behavioral problems. Clinicians can use 16PF results to identify effective strategies for establishing a working alliance, to develop a therapeutic plan, and to select effective therapeutic interventions or modes of treatment.Karson, W & J. W O'Dell.(1976). A Guide to the Clinical Use of the 16PF, University of Michigan Press. It can also be used within other contexts such as career assessment and occupational selection.
Beginning in the 1940s, Cattell used several techniques including the new statistical technique of common factor analysis applied to the English-language trait lexicon to elucidate the major underlying dimensions within the normal personality sphere. This method takes as its starting point the matrix of inter-correlations between these variables in an attempt to uncover the underlying source traits of human personality.Cattell, R. B. (1978). Use of Factor Analysis in Behavioral and Life Sciences. New York: Plenum. Cattell found that personality structure was hierarchical, with both primary and secondary stratum level traits.Cattell, R. B. (1957). Personality and Motivation Structure and Measurement. New York: World Book. At the primary level, the 16PF measures 16 primary trait constructs, with a version of the Big Five secondary traits at the secondary level.Boyle, G. J. (2008). Critique of Five-Factor Model (FFM). In G.J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D.H. Saklofske (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol. 1 - Personality Theories and Models. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. These higher-level factors emerged from factor-analyzing the 16 x 16 intercorrelation matrix for the sixteen primary factors themselves. The 16PF yields scores on primary and second-order "global" traits, thereby allowing a multilevel description of each individual's unique personality profile. A listing of these trait dimensions and their description can be found below. Cattell also found a third-stratum of personality organization that comprised just two overarching factors.Cattell, R. B. (1973). Personality and Mood by Questionnaire. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Cattell, H. E. P. & Mead, A. D. (2008). The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). In G.J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D.H. Saklofske (Eds), The Sage Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol. 2, Personality Measurement and Testing., Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
The measurement of normal personality trait constructs is an integral part of Cattell's comprehensive theory of intrapersonal psychological variables covering individual differences in cognitive abilities, normal personality traits, abnormal (psychopathological) personality traits, dynamic motivational traits, mood states, and transitory emotional statesBoyle, G. J. (2008). Simplifying the Cattellian psychometric model. In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske. (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol. 1 - Personality Theories and Models. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishers. which are all taken into account in his behavioral specification/prediction equation. The 16PF has also been translated into over 30 languages and dialects and is widely used internationally.Cattell, H. E. P. & Mead, A. D. (2008). The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). In G.J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D.H. Saklofske. (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol. 2 – Personality Measurement and Testing. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Cattell and his co-workers also constructed downward extensions of the 16PF – parallel personality questionnaires designed to measure corresponding trait constructs in younger age ranges, such as the High School Personality Questionnaire (HSPQ) – now the Adolescent Personality Questionnaire (APQ) for ages 12 to 18 years,Schuerger, J.M. (2001). 16PF Adolescent Personality Questionnaire. Champaign, IL: IPAT. the Children's Personality Questionnaire (CPQ),Porter, R. B. & Cattell, R. B. (1985). Handbook for the Children's Personality Questionnaire (CPQ), Champaign, IL: IPAT. the Early School Personality Questionnaire (ESPQ), as well as the Preschool Personality Questionnaire (PSPQ).
Cattell also constructed (T-data) tests of cognitive abilities such as the Comprehensive Ability Battery (CAB) – a multidimensional measure of 20 primary cognitive abilities,Hakstian, A. R. & Cattell, R. B. (1982). Manual for the Comprehensive Ability Battery. Champaign, IL: IPAT. as well as measures of non-verbal visuo-spatial abilities, such as the three scales of the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT),Cattell, R. B. & Cattell, A. K. S. (1973). Measuring intelligence with the Culture Fair Tests. Champaign, IL: IPAT. In addition, Cattell and his colleagues constructed objective (T-data) measures of dynamic motivational traits including the Motivation Analysis Test (MAT),Cattell, R. B., Horn, J. L., Sweney, A. B., & Radcliffe, J. (1964). Handbook for the Motivation Analysis Test (MAT), Champaign IL: IPAT. the School Motivation Analysis Test (SMAT),Krug, S. E., Cattell, R. B., & Sweney, A. B. (1976). Handbook for the School Motivation Analysis Test (SMAT). Champaign, IL: IPAT. as well as the Children's Motivation Analysis Test (CMAT).Cattell, R. B. et al. (1982). The Children's Motivation Analysis Test (CMAT). Champaign, IL: IPAT. As for the mood state domain, Cattell and his colleagues constructed the Eight State Questionnaire (8SQ), a self-report (Q-data) measure of eight clinically important emotional/mood states, labeled Anxiety, Stress, Depression, Regression, Fatigue, Guilt, Extraversion, and Arousal.Curran, J. P. & Cattell, R. B. (1976). Manual for the Eight State Questionnaire (8SQ). Champaign, IL: IPAT.
Outline The most recent edition of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), released in 1993, is the fifth edition (16PF5e) of the original instrument.Cattell, R. B., Cattell, A. K., & Cattell, H. E. P. (1993). 16PF Fifth Edition Questionnaire. Champaign, IL: IPAT.Russell, M. T., & Karol, D. (2002). The 16PF Fifth Edition Administrator's Manual. Champaign, IL: IPAT. The self-report instrument was first published in 1949; the second and third editions were published in 1956 and 1962, respectively; and the five alternative forms of the fourth edition were released between 1967 and 1969.Cattell, R. B., Eber, H. W., & Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). Champaign, IL: IPAT.
The goal of the fifth edition revision in 1993 was to: update, improve, and simplify the language used in the test items; simplify the answer format; develop new validity scales; improve the psychometric properties of the test, including new reliability and validity data; and develop a new standardization sample (of 10,000 people) to reflect the current U.S. Census population.
The 16PF Fifth Edition contains 185 multiple-choice items which are written at a fifth-grade reading level. Of these items, 76% were from the four previous 16PF editions, although many of them were re-written to simplify or update the language. The item content typically sounds non-threatening and asks simple questions about daily behavior, interests, and opinions.
Item format
A characteristic of the 16PF items is that, rather than asking respondents to self-assess their personality as some instruments do (e.g., "I am a warm and friendly person; I am not a worrier; I am an even tempered person."), they tend instead to ask about daily, concrete situations, e.g.:
When I find myself in a boring situation, I usually "tune out" and daydream about other things. True/False. When a bit of tact and convincing is needed to get people moving, I'm usually the one who does it. True/False.
Cattell argued that self-ratings relate to self-image, and are affected by self-awareness, and defensiveness about one's actual traits. The 16PF provides scores on 16 primary personality scales and five global personality scales, all of which are bi-polar (both ends of each scale have a distinct, meaningful definition). The instrument also includes three validity scales: a bi-polar Impression Management (IM) scale, an Acquiescence (ACQ) scale, and an Infrequency (INF) scale.
The Impression Management (IM) scale is a bipolar scale with high scores reflecting a preponderance of socially desirable responses and low scores reflecting a preponderance of socially undesirable responses. Possible reasons for an extremely high Impression Management score include: the examinee may actually behave in highly socially desirable ways, and responses are accurate self-descriptions; responses reflect an unconscious distortion consistent with the examinee's self-image but not with their behavior; or deliberate self-presentation as behaving in a highly socially desirable manner. A low impression management score suggests an unusual willingness to admit undesirable attributes or behaviors and can occur when an examinee is unusually self-critical, discouraged, or under stress.
The Acquiescence (ACQ) scale's purpose is to index the degree to which the examinee agreed with items regardless of what was being asked. A high score might indicate that the examinee misunderstood the item content, responded randomly, has an unclear self-image, or had a "yea-saying" response style.
The Infrequency (INF) scale comprises the most statistically infrequent responses on the test, which are all middle (b) responses and appear in the test booklet with a question mark. A score above the 95th percentile may indicate that the examinee had trouble reading or comprehending the questions, responded randomly, experienced consistent indecisiveness about the a or c response choice, or tried to avoid making the wrong impression by choosing the middle answer rather than one of the more definitive answers.
Administration Administration of the test takes about 35–50 minutes for the paper-and-pencil version and about 30 minutes by computer. The test instructions are simple and straightforward and the test is un-timed; thus, the test is generally self-administrable and can be used in either an individual or a group setting. The 16PF test was designed for adults at least age 16 and older, but there are also parallel tests for various younger age ranges (e.g., the 16PF Adolescent Personality Questionnaire).
The 16PF Questionnaire has been translated into more than 30 languages and dialects. Thus the test can be administered in different languages, scored based on either local, national, or international normative samples, and computerized interpretive reports provided in about 23 different languages. The test has generally been culturally adapted (rather than just translated) in these countries, with local standardization samples plus reliability and validity information collected locally and presented in individual manuals.
Scoring