Psychometric Evaluation of the BFI-10 and the NEO-FFI-3 in Indian Adolescents

The Five-Factor Model (FFM) is one of the most commonly examined constructs of personality across cultures in recent times. However, there is a lacuna of evidence for the suitability of FFM measures for Indian adolescent school students below the age of 17 years. We carried out two independent studies for the psychometric evaluation of the measures BFI-10 and NEO-FFI-3 on Indian adolescent school students. Both studies examined two socio-culturally distinct linguistic groups of secondary and senior secondary school students with a total sample of N = 1117 students. There was very limited support for a five-factor solution in both cases. Model fit was poor when applying FFM measures to our samples, whether applying confirmatory factor analysis or exploratory structural equation models. The results provide evidence against using adult personality measures with adolescents without separate psychometric validation and applying the Western age norms to Indian students without considering that the process of personality consolidation during adolescence may not be identical across cultures.