Constructing a short form of the hierarchical personality inventory for children (HiPIC): the HiPIC-30.

Children's personality traits are invaluable predictors of concurrent and later mental and physical health. Several validated longer inventories for assessing the widely recognized Five-Factor Model of personality in children are available, but short forms are scarce. This study aimed at constructing a 30-item form of the 144-item Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (HiPIC) (Mervielde & De Fruyt, ). Participants were 1543 children aged 6-12 years (sample 1) and 3895 children aged 8 years (sample 2). Sample 1 completed the full HiPIC, from which we constructed the HiPIC-30, and the Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach, ). Sample 2 completed the HiPIC-30. The HiPIC-30 personality domains correlated over r = .90 with the full HiPIC domains, had good Cronbach's alphas and correlated similarly with CBCL behaviour problems and gender as the full HiPIC. The factor structures of the HiPIC-30 were convergent across samples, but the imagination factor was not clear-cut. We conclude that the HiPIC-30 is a reliable and valid questionnaire for the Five-Factor personality traits in children.