The HP5 inventory: definition and assessment of five health-relevant personality traits from a five-factor model perspective

The aim of the present project was to construct a short personality inventory specifically applicable in personality and health research. The development began with a demarcation of some specific constructs thought to be relevant in explaining individual differences influencing the vulnerability to illness and illness progression as well as psychosocial adaptation to illness. Factor analytic procedures were used separately in two different samples to derive the scales from an item pool. Two confirmation samples were used in addition for cross-validating the final model. In addition, scales from other personality inventories were used to further validate the new scales. A total of 20 items were chosen to constitute the new instrument, entitled the HP5i (H for Health-relevant; P for personality; 5 for its correspondence with the FFM taxonomy; and i for inventory). The five scales were labeled Antagonism (as a facet of Agreeableness), Impulsivity (as a facet of Conscientiousness), Hedonic Capacity (as a facet of Extraversion), Negative Affectivity (as a facet of Neuroticism), and Alexithymia (as a facet of Openness). The new HP5 inventory Scales manifested a meaningful pattern of correlations with NEO PI-R Scales and with two alexithymia scales, thus suggesting some preliminary empirical evidence for convergent validity.