Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP): construction, internal consistency and normative data

TLDR

The study aimed to revise the Karolinska Scales of Personality by reducing items and enhancing psychometric quality. The revised Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP) comprise 91 items across 13 scales and were evaluated in a random normative sample of 741 participants. The SSP scales showed acceptable reliability (α 0.59–0.84), normal distribution, and a three‑factor structure of Neuroticism, Aggressiveness, and Extraversion, indicating substantially improved psychometric properties.

Abstract

Objective: A thorough revision of the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) was made by reducing the number of items and improving the psychometric quality as concerns face validity, internal consistency and response differentiation. The revised version was labelled The Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP) and now include 91 items divided into 13 scales. Method: The SSP were evaluated in a normative, randomly drawn sample ( n =741). All scales were found to be approximately normally distributed. Results: The Cronbach's α coefficients ranged from 0.59 to 0.84. The mean inter‐item correlations (M IIC ) ranged from 0.17 to 0.43. The scale intercorrelation matrix yielded a three‐factor solution with Factor 1 reflecting Neuroticism; Factor 2 Aggressiveness; and Factor 3 reflecting Extraversion. Conclusion: The original KSP scales were revised, shortened, modernized and psychometrically evaluated. The psychometric properties and the usefulness of the test battery were found to be substantially improved.