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Big Five Inventory

BFI-44
psychologysocial scienceseducationFree for research use

A 44-item self-report inventory measuring the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness) using short phrase items. A de-facto standard in personality research — balances brevity with subscale-level reliability.

Items
44
Response format
5-point Likert scale
Version
1.0
Subscales
5

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Personality traits were assessed using the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991; John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008) on a 5-point Likert scale. Subscale scores were computed as the mean of their constituent items after reverse-scoring the flagged items.

Reliability & validation

notes
Mean alpha ≈ .83 across the five subscales in John & Srivastava (1999).
Validation population
US and Canadian undergraduate and community samples
subscale alphas
0.79–0.88
cronbach alpha range
0.75–0.9

Subscales

ExtraversionAgreeablenessConscientiousnessNeuroticismOpenness

Response anchors

Disagree strongly · Disagree a little · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree a little · Agree strongly

Known limitations

Widely used in English-speaking samples. For cross-cultural work, the BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017) offers updated items and improved structure. Subscales are not independent — small positive correlations among Big Five dimensions are normal and expected.

Original citation

John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory — Versions 4a and 54.

Questions researchers ask

What does the BFI-44 measure?

A 44-item self-report inventory measuring the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness) using short phrase items. A de-facto standard in personality research — balances brevity with subscale-level reliability.

How many items does the BFI-44 have?

The Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) has 44 items across 5 subscales: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness.

Is the BFI-44 free to use?

The BFI-44 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Who developed the BFI-44, and how do I cite it?

John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory — Versions 4a and 54.

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Library entry verified January 2024. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.