What Is the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire?

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a self-reporting scale compiled by the British psychologist HJ Eysenck, and is based on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EH). Formulated in the late 1940s, first published in 1952, and officially named in 1975. There are two formats for adult questionnaires and children questionnaires. Includes four subscales: the Internal and External Tendency Scale (E), the Emotional Scale (N), the Psychonormal Scale (P, also known as Mental Quality), and the Effectiveness Scale (L). There are male and female norms. The scores of the P, E, and N scales decreased with age, and L increased. The P and N scores of mental patients are both high, and the L score is extremely high, with good reliability and validity. China s revisions are still divided into children and adults, but the number of items has been changed from 97 and 107 to 88 and 88, respectively. Because the scale has fewer topics and is easy to use, it is more applicable.

Chinese name: Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
Foreign name: Eysenck Personality Questionnaire,
Short name: EPQ

Author: HJ Eysenck
Types of: Self-aging scale
Nature: Psychological Research

About the author of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Hans J. Eysenck: Eysenck (1916-1997), a British psychologist, mainly engaged in personality, intelligence, behavioral genetics and behavior theory. He advocated looking at psychology from the perspective of the natural sciences and treating people as a biological and social organism. In the study of personality problems, Eysenck put forward the theory of three-dimensional characteristics of neuroticism, introversion-extroversion, and mental quality by using factor analysis.

Introduction to Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

H. Eysenck's personality theory J. Personality theory based on the theory of personality structure hierarchy and three-dimensional personality type is proposed by Eysenck. He believes that personality is a hierarchical structure organized by behaviors and behavior groups. At the lowest level are countless specific reactions, specific behaviors that can be directly observed. The higher layer is a habitual response, which is a behavioral tendency in which the specific response is repeatedly fixed. The next higher level is idiosyncrasy, an organic combination of habitual reactions, such as anxiety and stubbornness. The highest level is the type, which is an organic combination of a set of related traits. It has highly generalized characteristics and has a broad influence on human behavior. Through factor analysis of personality questionnaire data, he identified three basic dimensions of personality type. Personality can be divided into extraverted and introverted according to the dimension of extraversion; personality can be divided into emotional and stable according to emotional stability; personality can be divided into mental disorder and mental integration according to psychological abnormality.

Because EPQ has high reliability and validity, its measured results can be corroborated by multiple experimental psychological studies at the same time, so it is also the basis for verifying the personality dimension theory. The Chinese Eysenck test was revised by Chen Zhonggeng in 1981.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was developed by Professor Eysenck of the Department of Psychology and Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, UK. He collected a large number of relevant non-cognitive features, and concluded three orthogonal dimensions through factor analysis, and proposed three basic factors that determine personality: introversion and extroversion (E), neuroticism (also known as emotionality). ) (N) and mentality (also known as stubborn, practical) (P). People's different tendencies and different degrees of performance in these three aspects constitute different personality characteristics. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is one of the most widely used questionnaires in the fields of medicine, justice, education and psychological counseling.

The specific meaning of each scale is as follows:

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

A high score indicates an outgoing personality, which may be sociable, eager to stimulate and take risks, and emotionally prone to impulse. fraction

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Low indicates introverted personality, which may be quiet and introspective. Except for close friends, it is silent and indifferent to ordinary people, does not like stimulation, likes an orderly lifestyle, and is more emotionally stable.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Neurotic

Reflects normal behavior and has nothing to do with the condition. High scores may be anxiety, worry, often depression, anxiety, and strong emotional reactions, leading to irrational behavior.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

It does not imply mental illness, it exists in all people, but to varying degrees. But if someone shows a significant degree, it can easily develop into abnormal behavior. A high score may be lonely, indifferent to others, difficult to adapt to the external environment, unfriendly, feeling unresponsive, unfriendly to others, like to be provocative, to do strange things, and regardless of danger.

Concealment of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Determine the level of concealment, false care, or self-concealment of the subjects, or their social simplicity. L is related to the functions of other scales, but it itself represents a stable personality function.

Adult version scoring of 88 questions : (+) is a positive scoring, that is, one point is added for answering "yes", no points are added for "no"; Answer "No" plus one point

E scale (21 questions): (+): 1 5 10 13 14 17 25 3337 41 49 53 55 61 65 71 80 84

(-): 21 29 45

P scale (23 questions): (-): 2 6 9 11 18 22 38 42 56 62 72 88

(+): 26 30 34 46 50 66 68 75 76 81 85

N scale (24 questions): (+): 3 7 12 15 19 23 27 31 35 39 43 47

51 57 59 63 67 69 73 74 77 78 82 86

(-):no

L scale (20 questions): (+): 20 32 36 58 87

(-): 4 8 16 24 28 40 44 48 52 54 60 64 70 79 83

Interpretation of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Results

According to the total score (rough score) obtained by the subject on each scale, the standard score T score (T = 50 + 10 * (XM) / SD) is converted according to the normal model, and the personality characteristics of the subject can be analyzed . The T score of each scale is between 43.3 and 56.7 points is intermediate, the T score is between 38.5 and 43.3 points or between 56.7 and 61.5 points is trend type, and the T score is below 38.5 points or 61.5 points is typical.

Personality Theory of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Eysenck's Personality Theo-ry (HJ Eysenck's Personality Theo-ry) starts from the theory of traits, using factor analysis methods and traditional experimental psychology methods to study personality problems for a long time, and turns the research interest from traits to dimensions, so that Established his personality theory.

Eysenck objected to the abstraction of personality definitions. In his book "Dimensions of Personality" (1947), he pointed out that "personality is the sum of the patterns of behavior actually manifested by living beings." Eysenck believes that the sum of this behavior pattern includes four main aspects: cognition (intelligence), intentional movement (character), emotion (temperament), and body (physical constitution). Later he emphasized that personality is stable and persistent.

Personality Dimension of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Eysenck inherited the work of previous experimental psychologists and studied the personality dimension in depth through factor analysis of a large number of personal characteristics obtained through experiments, questionnaires, and observations. He believes that studying personality traits can sometimes be ambiguous, and only studying personality dimensions can be clear. He pointed out that the dimension represents a continuous scale. Each individual can be determined to occupy a particular position on this continuous scale, that is, to determine how much each individual has a certain trait represented by the dimension. In the 19th century, psychologists proposed the prototype of personality diagrams. They believe that personality can be described in two right-angled dimensions. According to the hypothesis of German psychologist W. Fengte, one dimension is the transition from strong emotionality to weak emotionality, and the other dimension is the transition from variability to invariance. Eysenck proposed five dimensions of extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, intelligence, and conservative-radicalism, but believed that extraversion-introversion, neuroticism and psychoticism are the three basic dimensions of personality.

The earliest research on the external-introverted concept was Austrian psychiatrist O. Gross. Later, in the work of Swiss psychologist CG Jung, the concept of extraversion-introversion was introduced into personality research. Later, many scholars did a lot of practical research on external-internal decent people. In addition to its general meaning, Eysenck's extraverted-introverted concept is also related to the process of excitation and inhibition of the nervous system. Excitation processes can facilitate ongoing feelings, cognitions, and activities; suppression processes can interfere with or affect the organism's ongoing feelings, cognitions, and activities. He found that in people with high extraversion, the process of excitement occurs slowly, the intensity is weak, and the duration is short, while the process of inhibition occurs fast, intensity is strong, and the duration is long. Such people have difficulty forming conditioned reflections. Highly introverted people have a fast process of excitement, strong intensity, and long duration, while a slow process of suppression, weak intensity, and short maintenance time. Such people are prone to form conditioned reflexes. In 1976, Revell et al. Conducted a study on the effects of work. They reasoned that introverted people already have a high level of excitement in the cerebral cortex under normal conditions. If they further increase their excitement level, they will reduce the work effect of the subjects; in extroverted people, the excitatory level of the cerebral cortex under normal conditions is relatively Lower, if they increase their excitement level, they will improve the work effect of the participants. The results of their actual research confirm the above inference and support Eysenck's point.

Eysenck's research on emotion, self-intensity, anxiety (including driving force), etc. found that they are all the same. He called this dimension neurotic. There is no necessary relationship between neuroticism and mental illness in his terms. Eysenck pointed out that people with emotional (nervous) instability are moody and prone to excitement; people with emotional (nervous) stability are slow and mild and easily return to calm. He further pointed out that emotional (nervous) is related to the functions of the autonomic nervous system, especially the sympathetic nervous system. Eysenck believes that extroversion and neurotic dimensions can be used to represent normal personality neurosis and psychopathic personality.

Eysenck believes that psychoticism is independent of neuroticism. It represents a stubborn, stubborn, rude and hard-hearted characteristic, and does not imply mental illness. Studies have shown that psychoticism can also be expressed in terms of dimensions, transitioning from the normal range to the extreme abnormal end. It exists in all people, only to varying degrees. High scores are characterized by loneliness, indifference to others, cold heart, lack of emotion and empathy, hostility towards others, and aggressiveness. Low scores are characterized by tenderness and kindness. If the individual's mental quality shows a significant degree, it will easily lead to abnormal behavior. Eysenck believes that together with the neurotic dimension, psychoticism can represent various neuroses and various mental illnesses.

Eysenck believes that experimental studies on the two dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism almost completely agree that these two factors are in a prominent and stable position in the personality measurement description system. He also used exo-introversion and neuroticism as two perpendicular personality dimensions, with extra-introversion as the latitude and neuroticism as the path (represented by the emotionally stable end and the emotionally unstable end) to draw the adult lattice structure (see figure 1). Eysenck organized the 32 personality traits that he considered to be basic in the two-dimensional space of Figure 1, and corresponded to the four types of temperament in ancient times. This diagram of personality structure is accepted by many psychologists. From the picture, it is possible to see not only the eight personality traits included in the four types of personality (stable extroversion, stable introversion, unstable extroversion, and unstable introversion). High-scoring traits. Look at the pictures to find out which personality type they belong to, or predict the specific personality problems that a certain body may have from the combination of dimensions.

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was developed in 1975 based on the three personality dimensions of extra-introverted, introverted, neurotic, and psychotic. It was formed by several personality scales compiled by Eysenck early. EPQ is a self-reporting scale, which has two forms of adult (90 items in total) and juvenile (81 items in total), each including four scales: E-extroversion-introversion; N-nervity; P-mental; L -Lying or concealing itself (ie the effectiveness scale). Because the questionnaire has high reliability and validity, the results obtained by it can be confirmed by multiple experimental psychological studies at the same time, so it is also the theoretical basis for verifying the dimension of personality.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Hypothesis

Eysenck also applied a factor analysis method to a large number of personal traits and proposed a unique hierarchy of personality structure theory. A general diagram of the theory is shown in Figure 2. It can be seen from Figure 2 that Eysenck divides personality structure into four levels: type, trait, habit response and special response. The lowest special response level is the individual's response to an experimental test or some of the most basic "individual responses" (such as the simplest every move) in daily life. It is an error factor, and it is the habitual response. Levels, such as repeated experiments or reappearance of life situations, one responds in a similar way, are special factors. Trait level is an individual's personality traits composed of one's habitual response, which is a group factor. The highest level of type is the type displayed based on the interrelationship of personality traits (for example, extraverted types composed of personality traits such as social, impulsive, active, lively, excited, etc. , Subjective, shame, susceptibility and other personality traits) are general factors.

Impact of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Eysenck's research on personality changed from personality traits to personality dimensions, and proposed three basic dimensions of personality. This is not only confirmed by many experiments in the laboratory, but also corroborated by mathematical statistics and behavioral observations. It has been valued by psychologists in various countries and has been widely used in medical, educational, and judicial fields. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a widely used personality scale that has been translated or revised by some countries. China's Eysenck test was revised by Chen Zhonggeng in 1981. Eysenck's personality research, unlike many American psychologists, focuses on traits, but focuses on type. He believes that traits are a collection of observed individual behavioral tendencies, and types are a collection of observed traits. He sees personality types as organizations with certain traits. The personality theory he proposed is mainly a type of hierarchical nature. The hierarchy of each type of structure is clear, so personality can be broken down into well-documented and countable elements. This is something that psychologists have been discussing for years and difficult to determine. Many psychologists believe that Eisenke solves the relationship of traits and types quite well. In his type-level discussion, it is shown that his personality view does not exclude the role of environment, but the biological tendency of personality is still the main aspect of his theory.

Application of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is a measurement method for personality research in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Psychiatry of the University of London. This questionnaire was developed from several previous questionnaires. The revised questionnaire includes 88 items, allowing participants to The answer is no, and then the score is registered according to the scoring standard, which is used to measure the three degrees of personality structure, namely introversion and extroversion, mental and neurotic.

The three personality degrees of Eysenck have not only been analyzed in many mathematical statistics and behavioral observations, but also have been examined by a variety of psychological experiments in the laboratory. They have been widely used in medical, judicial, educational and other fields, suitable for various Crowd test.