Personality Structure and the New Fifth Edition of the 16PF

The purposes of the present article were to describe briefly the development of the new fifth edition of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) and to present a check of the factor structure of this new edition. Since its initial publication in 1949, the 16PF has undergone four revisions (1956, 1962, 1968, and 1993). The latest revision (resulting in the 16PF fifth edition) was begun in 1988 with the goals of updating and improving item content, standardizing on a current population sample, and generally refining the test. Items were selected in a four-stage iterative process, beginning with an item pool containing the best items from all five current forms of the 16PF (Forms A, B, C, D, and CAQ Part 1). Specific item criteria are described. Factor analyses of the new items and scales are described and show strong support for the validity of the factor structure of the fifth edition and for its continuity with earlier versions.