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Ten-Item Personality Inventory

TIPI
psychologysocial sciencesFree for research use

A very brief 10-item measure of the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness), with two items per dimension. Intended for use when brevity is essential; sacrifices internal consistency for breadth.

Items
10
Response format
7-point Likert scale
Version
1.0
Subscales
5

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Personality traits were assessed using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003), a brief measure of the Big Five. Subscale scores were computed as the mean of two items, with the second item in each pair reverse-scored. The TIPI trades internal consistency for brevity; the authors show acceptable test-retest reliability and convergent validity with longer instruments.

Reliability & validation

notes
Low internal consistency is expected and acceptable given two-item subscales; test-retest and convergent validity with longer Big Five measures are strong. Test-retest averaged .72 over 6 weeks in the original paper.
Validation population
Undergraduate and community samples
Test–retest
0.72
cronbach alpha range
0.4–0.73

Subscales

ExtraversionAgreeablenessConscientiousnessEmotional StabilityOpenness to Experiences

Response anchors

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

Known limitations

Low Cronbach's alpha is expected with two-item subscales and should not be interpreted as poor reliability — use test-retest or convergent validity statistics instead. Not appropriate when dimension-level precision is critical.

Original citation

Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504-528.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1

Questions researchers ask

What does the TIPI measure?

A very brief 10-item measure of the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness), with two items per dimension. Intended for use when brevity is essential; sacrifices internal consistency for breadth.

How many items does the TIPI have?

The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) has 10 items across 5 subscales: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experiences.

Is the TIPI free to use?

The TIPI 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.

Is the TIPI reliable?

Validation studies report test–retest reliability of 0.72. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the TIPI, and how do I cite it?

Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1

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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.