Introduction

There are different ways to capture the personality traits that differ most between people. The BIG5 approach is one of them. The Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire follows a different approach (click here for a Wikipedia description of the differences between the approaches). See also the Zuckerman et al. paper, 1993 for a comparison of the different models of personality.

The shortened version of the ZKPQ (50 items) has been validated (Aluja et al., 2006), and you can find the original article and further information here.

Unlike the Big 5 questionnaires, which uses a Likert scale, the ZKPQ asks participants to score items as True or False.

The ZKPQ distinguishes the following 5 personality factors (abbreviation in parentheses):

  • Impulsive Sensation Seeking (ImpSS)

  • Neuroticism-Anxiety (N-Anx)

  • Aggression-Hostility (Agg-Host)

  • Activity (Act)

  • Sociability (Sy)

The ZKPQ was tested in different countries. The scores were reported in Table 6 of the original paper (Aluja et al., 2006), and here the means are listed:

Factor USA Germany Spain Switzerland

Neuroticism-Anxiety (N-Anx)

5.158

4.768

4.18

4.87

Impulsive Sensation Seeking (ImpSS)

5.940

4.186

5.27

5.38

Activity (Act)

4.150

4.812

4.89

3.76

Sociability (Sy)

6.464

5.284

6.51

5.67

Aggression-Hostility (Agg-Host)

5.474

4.789

4.86

4.72

There are important gender and age differences. For example, men score higher on impulsive sensation seeking and women on neuroticism-anxiety, which matches general patterns in the literature on sex differences. The details can be found in the paper of Aluja et al., 2006.

Run the demo

The shortened ZKPQ be used for research, but you need to acknowledge the authors and their research paper when writing about it (Aluja et al., 2006).

Technically

This is a simple scale question with some reverse items. Note that the scale has true (score=1) and false (score=0) values, which is quite rare among psychological scales. There are a number of methodological advantages, though.

The survey code for PsyToolkit

Copy and paste this code to your PsyToolkit account if you want to use the scale in your own online research project
scale: truefalse
- {score=1} True
- {score=0} False

l: zkpq
t: scale truefalse
o: random
o: width 80%
q: For each of the following statements,<br>
select whether it is true or false for you.
- I do not like to waste time just sitting around and relaxing.
- I lead a busier life than most people.
- I like to be doing things all of the time.
- {reverse} I can enjoy myself just lying around and not doing anything active.
- {reverse} I do not feel the need to be doing things all of the time.
- When on vacation I like to engage in active sports rather than just lie around.
- I like to wear myself out with hard work or exercise.
- I like to be active as soon as I wake up in the morning.
- I like to keep busy all the time.
- When I do things, I do them with lots of energy.
- When I get mad, I say ugly things.
- It's natural for me to curse when I am mad.
- {reverse} I almost never feel like I would like to hit someone.
- {reverse} If someone offends me, I just try not to think about it.
- If people annoy me I do not hesitate to tell them so.
- When people disagree with me I cannot help getting into an argument with them.
- I have a very strong temper.
- I can't help being a little rude to people I do not like.
- {reverse} I am always patient with others even when they are irritating.
- When people shout at me, I shout back.
- I often do things on impulse.
- I would like to take off on a trip with no preplanned or definite routes or timetables.
- I enjoy getting into new situations where you can't predict how things will turn out.
- I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening.
- I'll try anything once.
- I would like the kind of life where one is on the move and travelling a lot, with lots of change and excitement.
- I sometimes do "crazy" things just for fun.
- I prefer friends who are excitingly unpredictable.
- I often get so carried away by new and exciting things and ideas that I never think of possible complications.
- I like "wild" uninhibited parties.
- My body often feels all tightened up for no apparent reason.
- I frequently get emotionally upset.
- I tend to be oversensitive and easily hurt by thoughtless remarks and actions of others.
- I am easily frightened.
- I sometimes feel panicky.
- I often feel unsure of myself.
- I often worry about things that other people think are unimportant.
- I often feel like crying sometimes without a reason.
- {reverse} I don't let a lot of trivial things irritate me.
- I often feel uncomfortable and ill at ease for no real reason.
- {reverse} I do not mind going out alone and usually prefer it to being out in a large group.
- I spend as much time with my friends as I can.
- {reverse} I do not need a large number of casual friends.
- {reverse} I tend to be uncomfortable at big parties.
- At parties, I enjoy mingling with many people whether I already know them or not.
- {reverse} I would not mind being socially isolated in some place for some period of time.
- {reverse} Generally, I like to be alone so I can do things I want to do without social distractions.
- I am a very sociable person.
- {reverse} I usually prefer to do things alone.
- I probably spend more time than I should socializing with friends.

l: act
t: set
- sum $zkpq.1 $zkpq.2 $zkpq.3 $zkpq.4 $zkpq.5 $zkpq.6 $zkpq.7 $zkpq.8 $zkpq.9 $zkpq.10

l: agghost
t: set
- sum $zkpq.11 $zkpq.12 $zkpq.13 $zkpq.14 $zkpq.15 $zkpq.16 $zkpq.17 $zkpq.18 $zkpq.19 $zkpq.20

l: impss
t: set
- sum $zkpq.21 $zkpq.22 $zkpq.23 $zkpq.24 $zkpq.25 $zkpq.26 $zkpq.27 $zkpq.28 $zkpq.29 $zkpq.30

l: neuranx
t: set
- sum $zkpq.31 $zkpq.32 $zkpq.33 $zkpq.34 $zkpq.35 $zkpq.36 $zkpq.37 $zkpq.38 $zkpq.39 $zkpq.40

l: soc
t: set
- sum $zkpq.41 $zkpq.42 $zkpq.43 $zkpq.44 $zkpq.45 $zkpq.46 $zkpq.47 $zkpq.48 $zkpq.49 $zkpq.50

l: feedback
t: info
q: Your scores on the ZKPQ are as follows:<br>
<ul>
<li>Activity: {$act}
<li>Aggression-Hostility: {$agghost}
<li>Impulsive Sensation Seeking: {$impss}
<li>Neuroticism-Anxiety: {$neuranx}
<li>Sociability: {$soc}
</ul>
Write down your scores (for comparison).<br>
Note: Scores range from 0 to 10.<br>

References

  • Aluja, A., Rossier, J., García, L. F., Angleitner, A., Kuhlman, M., & Zuckerman, M. (2006). A cros-cultural shortened form of the ZKPQ (ZKPQ-50-c) adapted to English, French, German, and Spanish languages. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 619-628.

  • Zuckerman, M., Kuhlman, D. M., Teta, P., Joireman, J., & Kraft, M. (1993). A comparison of three structural models of personality: the big three, the big five, and the alternative five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 757-768.