Commenting here because this is the highest voted comment mentioning the Big Five.
The Big Five personality test linked to in the survey is an online implementation of the Big Five Inventory (BFI). It was used in two studies: Srivastava et al. (2003) and Gosling et al. (2004.
The most recent canonical citation of the BFI is John et al. (2008). The BFI is very widely used in the literature, so descriptive statistics (i.e., mean and SD) for different populations are available from many studies.
The percentiles from the online test were approximated under a Gaussian assumption (scores on Big Five inventories are typically not well-approximated by Gaussians, so the percentile rankings are bound to be off). Everyone was normed to the same distribution (i.e., age, gender, etc. do not affect the results; only the 44 questions on the BFI do). The exact mean and SD used by the test to calculate percentile rankings are as follows (converted to the usual 5-point Likert scale):
E: mean = 3.30, SD = 0.88
A: mean = 3.66, SD = 0.70
C: mean = 3.40, SD = 0.76
N: mean = 3.15, SD = 0.85
O: mean = 3.85, SD = 0.65
In order to compare LW’s results to norms in the literature, we need to convert the percentiles back to the 5-point scale. This is easy; just use an inverse CDF. Unfortunately, we are unable to recover the full range of results because some scores at the tails were rounded to the same percentile bins (note that the “percentiles” were actually rounded values from the CDF, so each percentile bin was shifted by 0.5 percentiles from what they should have been; truncation/floor should have been used instead of rounding).
As a quick comparison to the norms used by the online test, here are norms for the BFI from Donnellan et al. (2006) (n = 300, 78.7% female, sampled from undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses at Michigan State University):
E: mean = 3.43, SD = 0.72
A: mean = 3.82, SD = 0.56
C: mean = 3.63, SD = 0.60
N: mean = 2.93, SD = 0.73
O: mean = 3.50, SD = 0.57
Because we do not have the individual responses for each item on the BFI, we will be unable to test the fit of the five-factor model to LW data or to confirm the expected factor loading of each item.
Commenting here because this is the highest voted comment mentioning the Big Five.
The Big Five personality test linked to in the survey is an online implementation of the Big Five Inventory (BFI). It was used in two studies: Srivastava et al. (2003) and Gosling et al. (2004.
The most recent canonical citation of the BFI is John et al. (2008). The BFI is very widely used in the literature, so descriptive statistics (i.e., mean and SD) for different populations are available from many studies.
The percentiles from the online test were approximated under a Gaussian assumption (scores on Big Five inventories are typically not well-approximated by Gaussians, so the percentile rankings are bound to be off). Everyone was normed to the same distribution (i.e., age, gender, etc. do not affect the results; only the 44 questions on the BFI do). The exact mean and SD used by the test to calculate percentile rankings are as follows (converted to the usual 5-point Likert scale):
E: mean = 3.30, SD = 0.88
A: mean = 3.66, SD = 0.70
C: mean = 3.40, SD = 0.76
N: mean = 3.15, SD = 0.85
O: mean = 3.85, SD = 0.65
In order to compare LW’s results to norms in the literature, we need to convert the percentiles back to the 5-point scale. This is easy; just use an inverse CDF. Unfortunately, we are unable to recover the full range of results because some scores at the tails were rounded to the same percentile bins (note that the “percentiles” were actually rounded values from the CDF, so each percentile bin was shifted by 0.5 percentiles from what they should have been; truncation/floor should have been used instead of rounding).
As a quick comparison to the norms used by the online test, here are norms for the BFI from Donnellan et al. (2006) (n = 300, 78.7% female, sampled from undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses at Michigan State University):
E: mean = 3.43, SD = 0.72
A: mean = 3.82, SD = 0.56
C: mean = 3.63, SD = 0.60
N: mean = 2.93, SD = 0.73
O: mean = 3.50, SD = 0.57
Because we do not have the individual responses for each item on the BFI, we will be unable to test the fit of the five-factor model to LW data or to confirm the expected factor loading of each item.