The recaptured scale technique applied to the multidimensional personality questionnaire constructs: A replication across item format and gender

•The “recaptured scale technique” was applied to personality self-rating scales.•The Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) constructs were recaptured.•The recaptured scales were scored on a new data set.•The recaptured scales shown to have high convergent and discriminant validity.

A previous study demonstrated that the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) scales are highly robust and can be recaptured when the items (True/False format) are embedded in a large and diverse pool of individual difference items. We called this scale robustness test the “recaptured scale technique”. Those results strongly supported the exploratory scale construction technique used to create the MPQ. This study generalizes our earlier findings by demonstrating that the 11 MPQ constructs are also highly robust-as evaluated by the recaptured scale technique-and also can be recovered when they are measured by self-rated (5 point scale) adjectives or brief descriptors. Specifically, using data from a large sample of participants of the Minnesota Twin Registry (N = 3968), we factor analyzed the 63-item Minnesota Personality Self-Rating Scales and recovered 17 interpretable factors, 11 of which strongly resembled the 11 MPQ primary scales. The 11 recovered scales were scored on a new data set from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA) (N = 310) and shown to have high convergent and discriminant validity. These recovered scales were also shown to have a factor structure similar to that of the MPQ.