Big Five Inventory-2
BFI-2Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no license fee. Cite the original publication.
A 60-item hierarchical measure of the Big Five personality domains, each with three facets, updating the original Big Five Inventory.
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Reliability & validation
Subscales
Response anchors
Disagree strongly · Disagree a little · Neutral; no opinion · Agree a little · Agree strongly
Known limitations
Longer than brief alternatives; the 4-item facet scales are less reliable than domain scores, and self-report is subject to social-desirability and reference-group effects.
Original citation
Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117-143.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096Questions researchers ask
What does the BFI-2 measure?
A 60-item hierarchical measure of the Big Five personality domains, each with three facets, updating the original Big Five Inventory.
How many items does the BFI-2 have?
The Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) has 60 items across 5 subscales: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Negative Emotionality, Open-Mindedness.
Is the BFI-2 free to use?
The BFI-2 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.
Is the BFI-2 reliable?
Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.83–0.90. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.
Who developed the BFI-2, and how do I cite it?
Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117-143. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096
Related scales
Library entry verified September 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.