In some respects, the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R)(Costa and McCrae, 1985b, 1989a, 1992b) is a cutting-edge instrument. Our research on neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience began in the mid-1970s, but already by 1983 we had begun to add measures of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Research has continued since publication of the NEO-PI in 1985, resulting in a manual supplement issued in 1989 and a major revision introducing facet scales for agreeableness and conscientiousness in 1992. Item changes to improve internal consistency and readability recently led to the NEO-PI-3 (McCrae et al., 2005c). We hope and believe the NEO-PI-R incorporates the latest advances in personality structure and assessment; the ‘neo’in the title is an intended pun.

In other respects, the NEO-PI-R is profoundly conservative, deeply rooted in the research of generations of personality psychologists. Most of the traits it measures have long been familiar, and scale labels have been chosen to emphasize continuity with past conceptualizations. The psychometric strategies for item selection and scale validation