GED 101 Understanding the Self

ACTIVITY # 1: The Mini-IPIP (International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO PI-
R) Scale (20 points)

This section aims to reinforce your understanding of the topics covered in

Week 1 through the activity below.

Instructions: Below are phrases describing people’s behaviors. Please use

the rating scale below to describe how accurately each statement describes
you. Describe yourself as you generally are now, not as you wish to be in
the future. Describe yourself as you honestly see yourself, in relation to
other people you know of the same sex as you are, and roughly your same
age. Please read each statement carefully and put a number from 1 to 5
next to it to describe how accurately the statement describes you. Answer
the guide questions at the end of the activity.

1 = Very inaccurate 4 = Moderately accurate

2 = Moderately inaccurate 5 = Very accurate
3 = Neither inaccurate nor accurate

1. ___4__ Am the life of the party (E)

1 2. ___5__ Sympathize with others’ feelings (A)
3. ___3___ Get chores done right away (C)

4. ___2____ Have frequent mood swings (N)

5. ___3____ Have a vivid imagination (O)

6. ___6-1=(5)Don’t talk a lot (E)

7. ___6-5=(1) Am not interested in other people’s problems (A)

8. ___6-4=(2) Often forget to put things back in their proper place (C)

9. ___6-4=(2)Am relaxed most of the time (N)

10. __6-4=(2) Am not interested in abstract ideas (O)

11. ___6_Talk to a lot of different people at parties (E)

12. __4___ Feel others’ emotions (A)

13. ___3___ Like order (C)

14. ___2___ Get upset easily (N)

15. __3____ Have difficulty understanding abstract ideas (O)

 GED 101 Understanding the Self

16. __6-3=(3)_ Keep in the background (E)

17. __6-2=(4)_Am not really interested in others (A)

18. ___6-3=(3)_ Make a mess of things (C)

19. __6-2=(4)__ Seldom feel blue (N)

20. __6-2=(4)_ Do not have a good imagination (O)

Scoring: The first thing you must do is to reverse the items that are worded in the opposite
direction. In order to do this, subtract the number you put for that item from 6. So if you put a 4,
for instance, it will become a 2. Cross out the score you put when you took the scale, and put the
new number in representing your score subtracted from the number 6.

Items to be reversed in this way: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Next, you need to add up the scores for each of the five OCEAN scales (including the reversed
numbers where relevant). Each OCEAN score will be the sum of four items. Place the sum next
to each scale below.

2
_____12_____ Openness: Add items 5, 10, 15, 20

_____11_____ Conscientiousness: Add items 3, 8, 13, 18

_____18____ Extraversion: Add items 1, 6, 11, 16

_____14____ Agreeableness: Add items 2, 7, 12, 17

_____10___ Neuroticism: Add items 4, 9,14, 19

Compare your scores to the norms below to see where you stand on each scale. If you are low on
a trait, it means you are the opposite of the trait label. For example, low on Extraversion is
Introversion, low on Openness is Conventional, and low on Agreeableness is Assertive.

19–20 Extremely High, 11–13 Neither high nor low; in the middle,  

17–18 Very High,   8–10 Low,  

14–16 High,    6–7 Very low,   

 GED 101 Understanding the Self

4–5 Extremely low

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Guide Questions: Answer the following questions in an essay form with a maximum of 300 words.
Write your answers in a clean sheet of paper. Take a photo and turn it in using Google Classroom
(Classwork Activity #1).

How do you describe your scores on Mini IPIP Scale? Do you think the results are accurate? Why?

1. Do you think personality changes through time? How?

2. Discuss how we develop our personality.

3. Differentiate personality from self.

4. How will you answer the question, “Who am I?”?