Running Head: TEST REVIEW AND CRITIQUE OF NEO PI-R

Test Review and Critique of NEO PI-R

Washington State University
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General Information

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory test (NEO PI-R) stands for Neuroticism (N),

Extroversion (E), and Openness (O), Personality Inventory Revised version. It was developed by

Paul T. Costa Jr. and Robert R. McCrae. The original NEO-PI was published in 1985, assessing

only three of the big five traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness. In 1992 they did a

second revision to make the NEO PI-R and included Agreeableness and Conscientiousness,

completing the Five-Factor Model of Personality. (Kurylo & Stevenson, 2011). The NEO PI-R is

published by Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR) (Costa & McCrae, 1992).

To access NEO PI-R, the publisher, Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR), offers

printed and digital versions. The only available online version I could find was through the

publisher, which offers a digital version of their e-manual. Printed materials for the test are sold

in packages/booklets of 10 and 25 and are $105.00-$118.00 per package. The digital version,

available through PAR for access to their e-Manual is $129.00 per user or device. (PAR, Inc.,

2024) The NEO Software System was developed in 2010 and administers, scores and interprets

all forms of the NEO tests. (Costa & McCrae, 2011)

Test Description

The NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) is a multi-dimensional assessment

tool that measures constructs based on the theoretical foundations of the Five-Factor Model

(FFM) of personality, which includes five broad domains: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness

to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Each of these domains represents a major

dimension of personality, encompassing six narrower facets that provide a more detailed analysis

of individual personality traits. Neuroticism measures emotional stability and the tendency to
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experience negative emotions and includes the six facets of Anxiety, Hostility, Depression, Self-

Consciousness, Impulsiveness, and Vulnerability. Extraversion assesses sociability, energy, and

the tendency to seek stimulation and engage with the external world and includes the six facets

of Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement-Seeking, and Positive Emotions.

Openness to Experience evaluates intellectual curiosity, creativity, and preference for novelty and

includes the six facets of Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas, and Values. Agreeableness

measures the tendency toward altruism, trust, and cooperation versus antagonism and includes

the six facets of Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty, and

Tendermindedness. Conscientiousness assesses self-discipline, organization, and goal-directed

behavior and includes the six facets of Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement-Striving,

Self-Discipline, and Deliberation (Costa & McCrae, 2008) (Psysno, 2018).

Costa and McCrae developed the test through their investigation of how personality

changes with age and their study of normative aging. They wondered “What are the enduring

individual differences that allow us to describe the distinctive features of a person, and how are

they organized?” and developed the NEO tests to assess the most important general personality

traits and the factors they define. The NEO PI-R was designed for a wide range of individuals,

including adults and adolescents 18 and older, but have used it on high school students

successfully. The test does have a Flesch-Kincaid reading level of 5.7. (Costa & McCrae 2011).

The test is used in clinical, counseling, organizational, and research settings to assess personality

traits based on the Five-Factor Model (FFM) (Kurylo & Stevenson, 2011). In clinical and

counseling settings, health care professionals use it to better understand their clients' personality

traits, strengths and vulnerabilities and how these might influence their behaviors, emotions, and

relationships, which can help guide therapeutic approaches. It can also be used in the diagnosis
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and treatment of certain psychological conditions that may relate to personality traits like high

Neuroticism linked to anxiety (Psysno, 2018). Within organizational and workplace settings, the

NEO PI-R is used to support employee selection, team building, and leadership development by

providing insights into personality traits and possibly predict behavior based on their prevalent

traits. You can find the NEO PI-R being used in academic settings for helping to identify

students' learning preferences and personality-driven challenges or strengths as well as in

psychological research to explore personality dynamics, its correlations with behaviors, and its

impact on various life outcomes (Costa & McCrae 2011). The NEO inventories are classified as

Level B or S, which means that they are “available to individuals with a college degree in

psychology or a related discipline or in one of the health care professions, provided that they

have appropriate training in the use and interpretation of psychological tests” (Costa & McCrae

2011).

The NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) consists of 240 items, broken down

into 8 items from each of the 30 facets mentioned above. It is available in two formats: a self-

report form (Form S) and an observer rating form (Form R), and the “R” forms are further

distinguished for men or women with both consisting of behavior-based items rated on a five-

point scale from "strongly disagree-0" to "strongly agree-4,” which sums the item scores.

Completing the full version typically takes 30 to 40 minutes (Kaplan & Succuzzo, 2017). As

mentioned above, the test measures five primary dimensions of personality, Neuroticism,

Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and each of these are further

divided into six facets. Raw scores from item responses are converted into T-scores, standardized

with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, to compare results against normative data.

Results include domain and facet scores, visually represented on profile sheets and interpreted
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based on high or low T-scores, which reflect distinct personality traits. For example, high

Neuroticism scores suggest emotional instability, while high Conscientiousness scores indicate

strong discipline and goal orientation (Costa & McCrae 2011).

Test-takers receive results summarized in a “Your NEO Summary” report, which includes

domain scores and a strengths-based description of high, medium, or low levels in each domain.

(Psyno, 2018). With both manual and computerized options for the test, manual scoring uses a

key provided in the test manual to align item responses with corresponding traits and subscales,

while computerized scoring is available through the publisher PAR, which provides detailed,

comprehensive reports. Missing responses are handled based on the number unanswered and

tests with more than 40 missing items are deemed invalid, while those with fewer than 40 are

adjusted using prorated methods (Costa & McCrae 2011).

Technical Evaluation

The NEO PI-R was standardized on large, diverse samples to ensure broad applicability

across populations. Since the long-standing acceptance of the NEO PI-R in use across so many

areas, there have been thousands of samples, many additional studies done on this scale. Since

the original study was published in 1992 with the creation of this scale (Costa & McCrae, 1992),

I could not access the copy of the original article even through multiple resource locations and

gathered as much validity and reliability information as I could through additional publications.

The normative sample includes thousands of participants aged 20 to 90 and has over time proven

to be a mostly balanced representation of gender, socioeconomic status, and cultural

backgrounds, minus a few international locations. The extensive cross-cultural adaptations have

further expanded its utility, making the NEO PI-R a robust and reliable tool for assessing

personality in various contexts (Costa & McCrae, 2011).

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The NEO PI-R manual by Costa and McCrae (1992) specifies that varimax rotation, a

type of orthogonal rotation, was used as the factor rotation procedure during the test

development. This method was applied to ensure that the factors identified (N, E, O, A and C)

were as distinct and uncorrelated as possible, maximizing the interpretability of each factor in the

five-factor model of personality. (Costa & McCrae, 2008) Internal consistency coefficients for

both Forms R and S of the NEO PI-R, as reported in the manual (Costa & McCrae, 1992), range

from 0.56 to 0.95 across domain and facet scales. Test-retest reliability over six years for the five

factors ranged from 0.68 to 0.83, demonstrating the measure’s long-term stability (Kurylo &

Stevenson, 2011). Costa and McCrae's research included convergent and discriminant validity

aspects, showing correlations between its facets and other established measures like the Myers-

Briggs Type Indicator and Self-Directed Search. Additional studies demonstrate validity

criterion, linking traits such as Conscientiousness to GPA, Neuroticism to teacher burnout and

computer anxiety, and Agreeableness to reduced burnout and anxiety (Psyno, 2018). The NEO

PI-R has been criticized for not including traditional validity scales so in 1997, Schinka, Kinder

and Kremer developed a set of validity indexes for the test that used 10-item validity scales from

the existing NEO PI-R that detected positive and negative presentation management response

styles (Young & Schinka, 2001). There have been a variety of studies done since the scale was

developed that have been validated in many ways.

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References

Costa, P. T., McCrae, R. R., & Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. (1992). Revised NEO

Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Psychological

Assessment Resources.

Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (2008). The revised neo personality inventory (neo-pi-r). The

SAGE handbook of personality theory and assessment, 2(2), 179-198.

Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (2011). The revised neo personality inventory (neo-pi-r). Research

Gate. Chapter 6.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285086638_The_revised_NEO_personality_inventory_

NEO-PI-R

Kaplan, R. M., & Saccuzzo, D. P. (2018). Psychological testing: Principles, applications, and

issues (9th ed.). Cengage Learning, Chapter 13, 358-362, 369.

Kurylo, M. & Stevenson, J. (2011). NEO Personality Inventory. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J.,

Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_2000

PAR, Inc. (2024). NEO-PI-R: NEO Personality Inventory-Revised. Retrieved December 3, 2024,

from https://www.parinc.com/products/NEO-PI-R

Psynso. (2018). Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Retrieved December 3, 2024, from

https://psynso.com/revised-neo-personality-inventory/
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Young, M. S., & Schinka, J. A. (2001). Research Validity Scales for the NEO-PI-R: Additional

Evidence for Reliability and Validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 76(3), 412–420.

https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327752JPA7603_04