Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a self-report instrument that is based on Eysenck's theory of personality. The EPQ was developed by Hans J. Eysenck, one of the most influential personality theorists, and Sybil B. G. Eysenck, and is part of a group of scales developed by Eysenck and his colleagues. The first published scale in this line of work was the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI; H. J. Eysenck & Knapp, 1962), which measured two personality tendencies, Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E). Following the publication of the MPI, a lie scale was added and two alternate forms were devised, forming the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI; H. J. Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964). Subsequently, a third personality dimension, Psychoticism (P) was added, creating the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The psychoticism subsacle had undesirable psychometric properties and was criticized for having low reliability, a low range of scoring, and a skewed distribution. In response, in 1985 the scale was revised by removing some items from the P scale and adding some items to the P, N, and E scales. The revised measure, the EPQ-R is the currently used form of the questionnaire (S.B.G. Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985) and is a prime measure of Eysenck's personality dimensions.