Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism as Measured by Eysenck's Inventories in Iran

Abstract

This paper presents results obtained with a slightly modified version of the Persian form of the EPI (PEPI) which also included Eysencks' recently published psychoticism scale. Subjects were 1009 Iranian secondary school graduates (768 boys and 241 girls) aged between 18 and 20 years taking the Pahlavi University entrance examination. Retesting of a small group of subjects under ordinary conditions showed little distortion of the mean scores that might be attributed to the highly competitive test situation. The test retest reliability of the scales over a five-month period, however, was undesirably low, except for the N-scale. The P-scale was found to correlate positively with neuroticism. Iranian female subjects had scored higher than their male counterparts on neuroticism but lower on both extraversion and psychoticism. In comparison with British norms, Iranian subjects had scored higher on both N and P scales, the difference on the latter being particularly striking. These findings are discussed in the light of earlier findings with the PEPI and some tentative explanations for the observed national differences are suggested.