[Is personality assessment with the French Big Five Inventory (BFI-Fr) invariant according to gender and activity of the respondents?] / La mesure de la personnalité à l'aide du Big Five Inventory français (BFI-Fr) est-elle invariante selon le genre et l'activité des répondants ?

OBJECTIVES: The BFI-Fr is an effective tool to assess the five dimensions of the five-factor model of personality. The psychometric qualities are excellent in several validation studies. However, because the inconsistency of certain items may be due to a lack of invariance between groups, we examined this invariance according to the gender and activity of the respondents. METHODS: The sample consists of 1904 participants (1232 women and 672 men; 1159 students and 745 professionals). Recruitment was done by "snowball" from different studies conducted over four years. Respondents completed the BFI-Fr. The 45 items were corrected for the acquiescence bias. The Item Response Theory methodology was used to test the invariance using the differential item functioning (DIF) test. The T scores were subject to ANCOVA and correlations to compare the differences between subgroups. RESULTS: Whatever the subsample, we found the same five-factor structure (similarities were especially high for C). The cumulative explained variances are comparable for all groups. The functioning of eight items varied between men and women; and six between activity groups, however, all but one DIF values were low. No item in domain A varied in its measure. ANCOVA results showed that women have higher A and N scores than men and that professionals have higher C and lower N scores than students. There is no interaction effect between gender and activity. When we removed the non-invariant items, the effect of gender became significant in favor of women on dimension C even if the difference remained minimal. The difference by activity on N became non-significant. There was a very strong link between activity and age and between gender and activity: in the sample, women were more often students and vice versa. CONCLUSIONS: Overall and once again, the structure and internal consistency of the Big Five as measured by the BFI-Fr was replicated in new samples. There was a differential functioning of 12 items out of 45 (about a quarter). These differences were small since only one was of moderate magnitude. The deletion of these items did not strongly change the mean comparisons between groups. Therefore, our results do not call into question the usefulness of the BFI-Fr but invite to control the extent of this differential functioning. In all cases (with or without the non-invariant items) the analyses showed significant gender differences for A and N, differences which are typically found in many studies. Students and professionals differ in their levels of C and E. Certain inconsistencies are probably due to the translation from American to French, since the BFI-Fr is based on the lexical approach (in this context, item content was somewhat dependent of languages peculiarities). Thus, the BFI-Fr allows a robust evaluation of the five dimensions but requires a prior control of the invariance of item functioning in order to ensure that the intergroup differences in E-A-C-N-O mean scores do not reflect a psychometric artifact but genuine personality differences.

[CONFAMI study: Effects of home confinement during the COVID-19 epidemic on the lives of children and their families]. / Étude CONFAMI : effets du confinement durant l'épidémie de la COVID-19 sur la vie des enfants et leur famille.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to understand the changes within families during confinement motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore the psycho-emotional experiences of children and their parents in this new situation. Confinement necessarily induced significant changes in daily family routines, particularly for work, education, leisure and social activities. In the more vulnerable pediatric population, several authors have warned of the need to consider the impact of lockdown measures during COVID-19 on the psychological impact and well-being. METHOD: This is an anonymous online survey with methodology combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. The questions targeted several themes such as life context, emotional experience and the impact on daily habits in children and adolescents, as perceived by parents. Participants are adults and parents of at least one child. They were recruited through social media and email. RESULTS: A total of 439 parents responded to the questionnaire. The families generally stayed in their usual place of residence and managed to adapt well. On average, the children's level of worry (as estimated by parents) was lower than the level of worry parents attributed to themselves. For the majority, the parents did not observe any change, the psychological state of the children and adolescents was generally stable, but for those who experienced more negative emotions than usual, it was an increase in boredom, irritability and anger. A decrease in the quality of sleep was also observed by a third of the respondents. On the other hand, an increase in autonomy was noted. Regarding the quality of family cohabitation, an important result showed that confinement had improved family relationships for 41% parents but at the expense of usual social ties inducing a feeling of deprivation. Indeed, the participants evoke a lack of "social link" and "social contact with friends". Lack became synonymous with absence, a feeling of loneliness and separation. CONCLUSION: Our results confirm European and international data collected in children in countries where strict lockdown measures have been applied. Despite the negative emotions felt in some children, confinement has helped develop new resources in most families. Families seem to have been successful in maintaining a stable and secure routine which has certainly been a protective factor against anxiety. Some reported factors, such as bonding, could be protective factors and constitute good leads in interventions to be offered to children and their families.

[Validation of the French version of the 10-item Big Five Inventory]. / Validation française du Big Five Inventory à 10 items (BFI-10).

OBJECTIVE: Our primary objective was to validate the French version of the BFI-10, an ultra-short ten-item version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John et al., 1991), which allows for a reasonably accurate assessment of personality in circumstances in which more in-depth assessment is not possible. In order to reach a thorough evaluation of the external validity, we also aimed to examine the bandwidth of the BFI-10 scales with reference to the study by De Young, Quilty and Peterson (2007) who distinguished between two aspects in each of the Big Five: Assertiveness and Enthusiasm for Extraversion; Compassion and Politeness for Agreeability; Orderliness and Productiveness for Conscientiousness; Withdrawal and Volatility for Negative Emotionality, and finally Openness to Aesthetics and Openness to Ideas for Open-Mindedness. Our concern with regard to bandwidth was to examine whether the BFI-10 scales have strong enough correlations with both aspects of each domain. METHODS: Participants. Data from four samples were analysed: Sample 1 comprised 2499 undergraduate students (1654 women) who completed the full BFI in university classes; Sample 2 comprised 13,306 participants (8471 women) who filled out the BFI-10 ten items online via Internet; Sample 3 comprised 143 undergraduate students (115 women) who completed the full BFI twice with a two-week interval; Sample 4 comprised 360 undergraduate students (183 women) who filled out the BFI and NEO PI-R. INSTRUMENTS: The French version of the Big Five Inventory is a 45-item inventory, which measures the five broader domains of personality. The ultrashort Ten-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) was developed simultaneously in German and English by Rammstedt and John (2007); it comprises five two-item scales measuring the big five domains. The Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory Revised (NEO PI-R; Costa et McCrae, 1992) is a 240-item questionnaire which assesses the big five domains and 30 lower-order facets, i.e. six facets per domain. STATISTICAL ANALYSES: Factor structure and reliability of the five two-item scales were first investigated on samples 1 and 3. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted on samples 1 and 2, and discriminant validity was assessed via comparison with the NEO PI-R (sample 4). In order to examine the bandwidth of the BFI-10 two-item scales, we studied their correlation not only with the NEO PI-R domains but also with the 30 facets. RESULTS: The CFAs showed the good fit of the five-factor structure, with RMSEA=.077 (.072), CFI=.974 (.956), and SRMR=.029 (.027) in samples 1 and 2 respectively. Multigroup CFA conducted in groups 1 and 2 showed invariance across gender of factor loadings and item intercepts. Test-retest reliability was satisfactory with rs ranging from .68 (Open-Mindedness) to .86 (Extraversion and Negative Emotionality). The comparison of the two-item scales with the NEO PI-R scales showed high correlations not only with the NEO domain scales, but also with several facets: Four BFI-10 two-item scales (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Negative Emotionality, and Open-Mindedness) were highly correlated with at least three of the six NEO facet scales in each domain. For Agreeableness, the magnitude of correlations was smaller, but the pattern of correlations was the same. All BFI-10 scales had at least moderate correlations with both aspects of each domain, with the exception of Negative Emotionality, which measured the NEO Withdrawal aspect better than Volatility. CONCLUSION: The French version of the BFI-10 demonstrated the expected five-factor structure, satisfactory reliability, and broad bandwidth. It could be a valuable tool for the assessment of personality in circumstances in which it is not possible to use a longer and more in-depth instrument, especially when personality is not the main focus of research but one of the variables to be controlled.

[Does the French Big Five Inventory evaluate facets other than the Big Five factors?] / Le Big Five Inventory français permet-il d'évaluer des facettes en plus des cinq grands facteurs ?

INTRODUCTION: The Big Five Inventory (BFI) developed by John et al. (1991) is one of the most widely accepted tools for assessing dimensions of personality. It comprises 44 items that assess five broad dimensions of personality (the Big Five Factors): Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to experience. Based on correlations with the facets described in the NEO Personality Inventory Revised (NEO PI-R), another Big Five assessment tool with 240 items and 6 facets per dimension, Soto and John (2009) showed that the dimensions in the BFI could be divided into two facets each (ten facets altogether). These results are in line with those of DeYoung et al. (2007), who ran factorial analyses with all the NEO PI-R facets and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and identified ten intermediate factors (between facets and dimensions) which they called "aspects" (two per dimension). The goal of the present study is to investigate the ten facets described by Soto and John in a French sample, using the French version of the BFI (BFI-Fr), which has good psychometric properties, and to check whether the pattern of correlations of these facets with the NEO PI-R match those of the American version. METHOD: We created three groups. The first comprised 360 students from the Institut libre d'éducation physique supérieure (ILEPS) and Tours University (psychology undergraduates). Participants (mean age 21.1 years±2.30; 58% women) completed the BFI-Fr and the NEO PI-R. The second comprised 142 psychology students from Tours University (mean age 20.6 years±1.78; 81% women); they completed the BFI-Fr twice, two weeks apart (test and retest). The third comprised 252 psychology students from Paris-Nanterre University (mean age 23 years±4.2; 89% women) who described a total of 405 people they knew well (mean age 35.2±10.8; 49% women) using the peer-report format of the BFI-Fr. RESULTS: In the self-report format, eight of Soto and John's ten aspects had acceptable internal consistency (based on Guildford's (1954) internal consistency criteria, due to the small number of items), with Cronbach's α between 0.60 and 0.86 and test-retest correlations between 0.71 and 0.89, showing satisfactory temporal stability. We found a single facet for Extraversion (Assertiveness), two for Agreeableness (Altruism and Compliance), two for Conscientiousness (Self-Discipline and Order), one for Neuroticism (Anxiety), and two for Openness to Experience (Openness to aesthetics and Openness to ideas). Based on their convergence with the corresponding facets in the NEO PI-R, these eight facets showed satisfactory external validity. With regard to the peer-report format, the Activity facet of Extraversion, which did not have sufficient internal consistency in the self-report format, had acceptable properties (i.e. 9 out of 10 facets). Only the Depression facet of Neuroticism still had insufficient internal consistency. In this study, we proposed an improvement of two facets (Activity and Compliance) and added one facet specific to the French version (Emotional Instability) in place of the Depression facet. DISCUSSION: We showed that the BFI-Fr can be used to assess nine of the ten facets described by Soto and John. We also identified an Emotional Instability facet, replacing the Depression facet of Neuroticism. DeYoung et al. (2007) considered that anxiety and depression are indissociable and can be represented by a Neuroticism aspect they labeled Withdrawal. They suggested a second aspect of this dimension they called Volatility (with the N2 Angry Hostility facet of the NEO PI-R as main marker and the N5 Impulsiveness and N3 Depression as secondary markers). The Emotional Instability facet we found corresponds closely to the N2 Angry Hostility facet of the NEO PI-R and appears to be a satisfactory marker of DeYoung et al.'s (2007) Volatility aspect. Although this study has limitations, particularly related to the samples (students), the BFI-Fr facets (derived from those defined by Soto and John in the BFI or proposed as improvements on the original facets) match the corresponding NEO PI-R facets and can also be seen as main markers of the aspects defined by DeYoung et al.