Five-Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire(FF-NPQ): A Semi-Projective Test Review

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2016, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (2) : 479-484.

PDF(504 KB)
PDF(504 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2016, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (2) : 479-484.

Five-Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire(FF-NPQ): A Semi-Projective Test Review

Author information +
History +

Abstract

Based on different item presentation modes, five-factor approach personality test can be divided into sentential self-report test, adjective checklist test and nonverbal test. At present, there are many sentential self-report tests and adjective checklist tests, however nonverbal personality tests are still rare. Five-Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire (FF-NPQ) was developed by Paunonen and his partners in 2001 and it is the only nonverbal personality test that has been widely accepted and used. Most items of FF-NPQ were selected from NPQ based on the five-factor model. There are five dimensions including extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience, and they were classified to the five factors according to the correlation between NPQ and the five factors using the construct-based method. The third step was to select 12 items in four dimensions of NPQ respectively, which had the highest correlation coefficients with the corresponding factor in the five-factor dimensions, and then include them into the final questionnaire. The only exception was the neuroticism dimension, which included the 8-item of one dimension in the NPQ. At last, 13 new items of neuroticism were redrawn and were tested together with the existing 8 items to select 12 most correlated items with neuroticism. Finally, the FF-NPQ contains 60 items and each factor is tested with 12 items. Each FF-NPQ item is a black and white picture, showing a central person engaging in a personality-related behavior. There will be one or more people in a picture and the one with black hair is the central person. Respondents are asked to consider the behavior depicted in the item and rate the probability that they would engage in a similar behavior and record their responses by selecting a number from a 7-point scale. FF-NPQ has good psychometric properties. Its internal consistency has been verified in more than ten countries, and almost all the results are higher than the standard value of 0.7. In addition, its convergent validity with some verbal five-factor personality tests is acceptable. Moreover, the score of FF-NPQ can predict tobacco consumption, alcohol consumption, blood donations and many other complex behaviors. FF-NPQ enriches the forms of five-factor approach personality test. It can be applied to cross-cultural researches and can also be used to measure the personality of illiterate, the aged and people who have problems in verbal expression or reading comprehension. FF-NPQ is a semi-projective test which combines projective test and self-report test together. It is more objective than the projective test and can avoid the social desirability when compared with self-report test. However, little research about FF-NPQ has been done abroad so far and so has in China. It was developed in western culture, so some items may not be suitable for non-western culture and need to be carefully used in cross-cultural research. FF-NPQ represents a trend of semi-projective personality test. It shows good reliability and validity and can improve the accuracy of the cross-cultural personality research, so it is worth being introduced and revised.

Key words

FF-NPQ / five-factor approach / semi-projective test

Cite this article

Download Citations
Five-Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire(FF-NPQ): A Semi-Projective Test Review[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2016, 39(2): 479-484
PDF(504 KB)

Accesses

Citation

Detail

Sections
Recommended

/