Desirability and Frequency of Endorsement Scale Values and Endorsement Proportions for Items of the Basic Personality Inventory

Abstract

This paper reports the judged desirability and judged frequency of endorsement for the 240 Basic Personality Inventory items. The endorsement proportions in normal adult, psychiatric, and high school samples are also reported. Comparisons between the Basic Personality Inventory, California Psychological Inventory, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory indicate that although the first inventory has a greater dispersion of desirability scale values (proportionately more undesirable items), it has less extreme endorsement proportions than either of the other two. The Basic Personality Inventory shows sharp contrast between the endorsement proportions of normal and psychiatric samples. These results are interpreted in terms of the method of construction of the inventory.