Basic Personality Inventory (BPI)

Best For:

• Psychologists looking for a quick psychological screening test for both normal and clinical populations
• Counselors and psychologists seeking to assess psychopathology in adults and adolescents
• Research on normal and maladaptive personality for diverse populations
• Online administration and an informative report for easy interpretation

What is the BPI?

The Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) is a personality assessment intended for use with clinical and normal populations to identify sources of maladjustment and personal strengths. The BPI can be used with both adolescents and adults, and can be completed in half the time of other measures of psychopathology.

Why Should I Use the BPI?

CONVENIENT. The BPI can be administered in 35 minutes on SIGMA’s online platform – SigmaTesting.com. Reports are generated immediately. Results are presented using graphs, numbers, scale descriptions, and critical item endorsement.

UNIQUE FEATURES. The BPI measures 12 distinct psychological traits. Scale names were chosen to avoid potentially stigmatizing diagnostic labels while preserving the accuracy of the construct name. The BPI makes use of sophisticated procedures to minimize susceptibility to social desirability response bias. It is sensitive to the tendency to describe oneself in favorable (“fake-good”) and unfavorable (“fake-bad”) terms.

EXTENSIVE INTERPRETATIVE MATERIALS. The BPI manual offers a wealth of information to facilitate results interpretation. The manual includes detailed scale descriptions and score interpretations based on the professional opinions of experienced psychologists, guidance on the detection of invalid cases, faking, and motivated distortion. Correlations with other well-established measures of psychopathology (i.e., the MMPI) are provided as well as empirically derived profiles representing specific symptoms of psychopathology.

RELIABLE AND VALID. The BPI is a reliable and valid measure of psychopathology. The BPI scales have demonstrated sizable correlations with other self-report measures intended to assess the same dimensions of psychopathology. For example, in a study of 235 substance abusers, BPI-Hypochondriasis correlated .73 with MMPI-Hypochondriasis. Other convergent validity estimates were .55 for BPI-Depression and MMPI-Depression, .62 for BPI-Thinking Disorder and MMPI-Schizophrenia, and .58 for BPI-Social Introversion and MMPI-Social Introversion.

Administration Overview

Qualification Level: C
Administer to: 12 years old and older
Administration time: 35 minutes