Калифорнийский психологический опросник: структура и интерпретация результатов.

The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) also known as California Personality Inventory is a self report inventory created by Harrison G. Gough and currently published by Consulting Psychologists Press. The text containing the test was first published in 1956, and the most recent revision was published in 1996. It was created in a similar manner to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)—with which it shares 194 items. But unlike the MMPI, which focuses on maladjustment or clinical diagnosis, the CPI was created to assess the everyday "folk concepts" that ordinary people use to describe the behavior of the people around them.

The CPI is made up of 434 true false questions, of which 171 were taken from the original version of the MMPI. The test is scored on 18 scales, three of which are validity scales. Eleven of the non validity scales were selected by comparing responses from various groups of people. The other four were content validated.

The inventory contains 434 items which can be scored to yield 18 scales. The 18 scales are further grouped into four classes: (1) measures of poise, ascendancy, self assurance, and interpersonal adequacy; (2) measures of socialization, responsibility, intrapersonal values, and character; (3) measures of achievement potential and intellectual efficiency; (4) measures of intellectual modes and interest modes. This paragraph will discuss what are referred to as the Structural Scales of the CPI 462 version, using information being provided by the manual for that version, the CPI Administrator's Guide from 1987. Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma personality types are conveniently illustrated by a score's placement on a grid defined by the two dimensions – the degree to which the person is norm favoring or norm questioning on one dimension (called the v.2 scale), and the degree to which he or she is more externally or internally focused (the v.1 scale). Alpha personality types are more enterprising, dependable and outgoing. Betas are reserved, responsible and moderate. Gammas are adventurous, restless, and pleasure seeking. Finally, Deltas are withdrawn, private, and to some extent disaffected. In a separate measure known as Realization, also referred to as the v.3 scale, a tester's score may reflect the degree to which he or she is reflective, capable, and optimistic about the present and future, when the score is high, or possesses the opposite characteristics when low. Thus, research scientists or medical or psychology graduate students tend to score high on this scale, while psychiatric patients, juvenile delinquents, prison inmates and even high school students in general (who lack life experience and are still forging a solid sense of identity) tend to score low. Another component of this test are the 20 Folk Concept Scales (18 in the CPI 434 version) – measuring Dominance, Capacity for Status, Sociability, Social Presence, Self acceptance, Independence, Empathy, Responsibility, Socialization, Self control, Good Impression, Communality, Well being, Tolerance, Achievement via Conformance, Achievement via Independence, Intellectual Efficiency, Psychological mindedness, Flexibility, and Femininity/Masculinity. These scales are called "folk" as they attempt to capture personality themes that should be broadly cross cultural and easily understood around the world. This test is thus an attempt to tap into personality factors that arise without exception to some, varying, degree, in all humans regardless of cultural context, and which provide a picture of people's relatively stable tendencies and characteristics, which is as good as any definition for what is loosely termed their unique "personality".

Correlations between CPI scales and related external criteria tend to fall in the .2 to .5 ranges. This degree of correlation is typical for much of personality research Extremely high correlations are not likely to be found for personality measures because the scales typically try to assess rather broad behavioral tendencies. Norms are available for males only, females only, and male/female data combined. The CPI has been very popular in research and in individual assessments of adolescents and adults. The fact that it was developed and normed on non psychiatric or non clinical populations is regarded almost universally as part of its positive reputation and usefulness among psychologists.

Despite the CPI's dichotomous response format, the reliabilities were uniformly high and held up well in both validation samples, averaging .85 in the scale development sample, .84 in the student validation sample, and even .83 in the much older community validation sample. The scale development sample consisted of, 433 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses at a public university in California. Most participants were in their early 20s. The participants were diverse in terms of ethnicity: 31% were White/Caucasian, 50% were Asian/Asian American, 8% were Hispanic/Latino, 2% were Black/African American, and 9% were of another ethnicity. All participants completed the 462 item version of the CPI.

CPI focuses on measuring and understanding common interpersonal behaviors (e. g., self control, dominance etc.) in the general population. Extreme scores on some of the scales provide important information on specific maladjustments an individual may be experiencing. Gough argued that if the Folk Concepts are correlated in the minds of the general population, the CPI scales should be similarly correlated. which means that new scales can be added into the existing set of scales if a new criterion is to be predicted. With the lack of theoretical basis, there could be an infinite number of criteria to be predicted and these scales may be empirically redundant and lack clear psychological meanings. Approximately 50% of the sample is composed of high school students and 16.7% of the sample are undergraduate students. Thus, the profiles forms used are more suited for evaluations of younger respondents. As a rule, clinicians also need to consider various factors such as life situation, reason for assessment, and overall pattern of scale elevation during result interpretation. This is because biased response from an individual may cause a single scale elevation which may not be meaningful if interpreted in isolation.