Big Five Measurement via Q-Sort

• Main Author: Chris D. Fluckinger
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2014-08-01
• Series: SAGE Open
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014547196

Socially desirable responding presents a difficult challenge in measuring personality. I tested whether a partially ipsative measure—a normatively scored Q-sort containing traditional Big Five items—would produce personality scores indicative of less socially desirable responding compared with Likert-based measures. Across both instructions to respond honestly and in the context of applying for a job, the Q-sort produced lower mean scores, lower intercorrelations between dimensions, and similar validity in predicting supervisor performance ratings to Likert. In addition, the Q-sort produced a more orthogonal structure (but not fully orthogonal) when modeled at the latent level. These results indicate that the Q-sort method did constrain socially desirable responding. Researchers and practitioners should consider Big Five measurement via Q-sort for contexts in which high socially desirable responding is expected.