The German Adaptation and Standardization of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI)

Abstract

We developed the German Adaptation of the Personality Assessment Inventory (Morey, 1991) under careful consideration of current adaptation literature and guidelines. The adaptation process included the translation of the 344 items into German, a back translation into English as well as the testing of the language equivalence using a bilingual sample. We then standardized the final German version of the PAI for the German population. We compared the American and German norm and reliability data. The observed differences in PAI scale means did not exceed 5 T scores. Internal consistency reliability showed a similar pattern in both language versions, although the German alpha coefficients were on average slightly lower than the American ones. Factor structure was similar in both versions. We discuss expectations about the German PAI and possible problems for its practical usefulness for the German-speaking population.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The standardization process of the German version of the PAI is supported by Verlag Hans Huber, Bern, Switzerland. We thank Verlag Hans Huber for providing gratuities for bilingual participants.

Notes

^aValues in parentheses are for the new Inconsistency scale.

^bEffect size (Cohen's d) > .20.

¹The new Inconsistency scale is comprised of the following 10 item pairs: 75–115, 55–135, 140–180, 190–230, 3–92, 52–132, 133–293, 246–286, 60–100, and 270–53

^aValues of the new Inconsistency scale, mean (standard deviations).

^aOriginal INC scale.

^aThe first value indicates congruence of the four-component solution across all 22 Personality Assessment Inventory full scales and the second value indicates congruence of the two-component solution across the 11 Clinical scales.