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Big Five Inventory

BFI-44
psychologysocial scienceseducationFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no license fee. Cite the original publication.

A 44-item self-report inventory measuring the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness) using short phrase items. A de facto standard in personality research that balances brevity with subscale-level reliability.

Items
44
Response format
5-point Likert scale
Version
1.0
Subscales
5

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Personality traits were assessed using the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991; John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008) on a 5-point Likert scale. Subscale scores were computed as the mean of their constituent items after reverse-scoring the flagged items.

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Reliability & validation

Notes
In a college student sample, BFI subscale alphas ranged from .79 to .88 (mean .83; John & Srivastava, 1999, Table 4.3). In U.S. and Canadian samples, BFI alphas typically range from .75 to .90 (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008).
Validation population
US and Canadian undergraduate and community samples
Subscale alphas
0.79–0.88
Cronbach alpha range
0.75–0.90

Subscales

ExtraversionAgreeablenessConscientiousnessNeuroticismOpenness

Response anchors

Disagree strongly · Disagree a little · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree a little · Agree strongly

Known limitations

Widely used in English-speaking samples. For cross-cultural work, the BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017) offers updated items and improved structure. Subscales are not independent: small positive correlations among Big Five dimensions are normal and expected.

Original citation

John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory — Versions 4a and 54. University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.

Questions researchers ask

What does the BFI-44 measure?

A 44-item self-report inventory measuring the Big Five personality dimensions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness) using short phrase items. A de facto standard in personality research that balances brevity with subscale-level reliability.

How many items does the BFI-44 have?

The Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) has 44 items across 5 subscales: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness.

Is the BFI-44 free to use?

The BFI-44 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.

Who developed the BFI-44, and how do I cite it?

John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory — Versions 4a and 54. University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.

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Related scales

BFI-2Big Five Inventory-2Mini-IPIPMini-IPIPHEXACO-60HEXACO-60TIPITen-Item Personality InventoryEQ-5D-5LEQ-5D-5L (Five-Level EuroQol)FFMQFive Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire

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.