Authors

Paul T. Costa, Jr., PhD, Robert R. McCrae, PhD

Description

The NEO-4 provides information on four personality domains: Extroversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. It is designed for use in employment and personal counselling settings involving activities such as career counselling, career development, and employee training, where these four domains are the main focus. Therefore, items in the Neuroticism domain relating to individual differences in such personality traits as anxiety and depression, which may not be relevant in career development settings, have not been included in the NEO-4. Three brief validity checks are provided on the answer sheet to alert the test administrator that an individual’s responses should be viewed with caution. The 192 NEO-4 questionnaire items and the scoring keys are identical to those of the E, O, A, and C factors of the NEO PI-R. Norms for the NEO-4 are based on the NEO PI-R combined-gender normative sample. Detailed information about the rationale, development, reliability, factor structure, and validity of these four factors is available in the NEO PI-R Professional Manual.

Each of the NEO-4 domains provides information on many aspects of an individual’s (ages 17 years and older) personality. Each of the domains may be interpreted at the global factor level; interpretation at the level of the 24 facet scales (six for each domain) facilitates a more detailed analysis. The NEO-4 Manual Supplement presents a new way to interpret the four domains in terms of six personal styles: Interests, Interactions, Activity, Attitudes, Learning and Character. Each style is defined by a graphic circumplex that combines two of the four factors. Interpretation of these six personal style graphs supplements the interpretation of the four domains and 24 facets. Because the NEO-4 is multi-faceted, it is possible to describe the many positive characteristics along with the less desirable qualities in a way that is readily acceptable to the individual.

The NEO-4 materials include a reusable item booklet for self-reports (Form S) or for ratings by another individual (Form R), a hand-scorable carbonless answer sheet, a profile form for plotting raw scores to yield T scores, a booklet containing the six personal style graphs, and a summary form for the client that provides feedback on the four domain scores as well as the respondent’s personal styles. A set of overhead transparencies is also available for use in workshops or other group settings.

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