STRUCTURE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN PERSONALITY INVENTORY       

 

1.        Positive Social-Relational Disposition

 

Description: Positively managing relations with others. 

Facets: Empathy, Facilitating, Integrity, Interpersonal Relatedness, Social Intelligence, and Warm-Heartedness. 

 

• Empathy:

Valuing and showing compassion to others by showing sensitivity towards their needs and emotions.

 

• Facilitating:

 Guiding, uplifting, and motivating others through their lives by giving them advice, instruction, and encouragement.

 

• Integrity:

Being consistently dependable, loyal, honest and fair towards others.

 

• Interpersonal Relatedness:

Being accommodating in one’s relationships and actively maintaining relationships through forgiveness and helpfulness, and by preserving peace.

 

• Social Intelligence:

Relating to others by being understanding of them and their feelings.

 

• Warm-Heartedness:

Being considerate, protective and supportive of others as well as being approachable and attentive to others’ needs.

 

 

2.         Negative Social-Relational Disposition

 

Description: Approaching relations with others more controversially. 

Facets: Arrogance, Conflict-Seeking, Deceitfulness, and Hostility–Egoism.

 

• Arrogance:

Seeing oneself as better and more important than others, by being arrogant and pompous.

 

• Conflict-Seeking:

Being socially disruptive, intrusive, and indiscreet about the private affairs of others.

 

• Deceitfulness:

Actively deceiving others by being fake, cheating them, and/or fooling them, by creating a false impression of oneself.

 

• Hostility–Egoism:

Aggressively self-promoting, by being self-centered, focusing exclusively on one’s own needs and desires, and simultaneously being abusive, denigrating, and critical towards others.

 

 

3.         Neuroticism

 

Description: The tendency of a person to be impulsive and to fluctuate between emotions by being easily aggravated and apprehensive.          

Facets: Emotional Balance, Negative Emotionality.

 

• Emotional Balance

Showing respect, knowledge and acceptance of self and one’s emotions, and being composed in       difficult situations.

 

• Negative Emotionality

Feeling angry or nervous, worried, and being afraid of various things.

 

 

4.         Extraversion

 

Description: Tendency toward being sociable and talkative, interacting with people in a spontaneous manner by having fun and telling stories that make people laugh.

Facets: Playfulness, Sociability.

 

• Playfulness:

Being lively, enjoys having fun and making others laugh. , and having the tendency to see the positive side of life.

 

• Sociability:

Being easy-going and talkative, and enjoy having people around oneself.

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5.         Conscientiousness 

 

Description: Orientation toward achievement, order, and traditionalism.

Facets: Achievement Orientation, Orderliness, Traditionalism–Religiosity, Integrity.

 

• Achievement Orientation:

Being motivated, perseverant, ambitious and hard-working towards achieving things in life. 

 

• Orderliness:

Being organised, neat, punctual, precise and thorough in everything one does.

 

• Traditionalism–Religiosity:

Being traditional by respecting one’s own culture and being religious.

 

 

6.         Openness

 

Description: The quality of being well-informed and observant of external and internal things, being a rational and progressive thinker, and acquiring new experiences, knowledge, skills, and ideas.

Facets: Broadmindedness, Intellect, Epistemic Curiosity

 

• Broad-Mindedness:

Being imaginative and seeking new experiences and ideas.

 

• Epistemic Curiosity:

Being inquisitive, investigative, and eager to acquire new information.

 

• Intellect:

Being knowledgeable, a quick learner, adaptable, articulate, innovative and perceptive.

 

 

7.         Social Desirability

 

• Negative Impression Management:

Description: The tendency to give a negative self-description/self-impression.

 

• Positive Impression Management:

Description: The tendency to give a positive self-description/self-impression.

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For more information go to:

Fetvadjiev, V. H., Meiring, D., Van de Vijver, Fons F. J. R., Nel, J. A., & Hill, C. (2015). The South African Personality Inventory (SAPI): A Culture-Informed Instrument for the Country’s Main Ethnocultural Groups. Psychological Assessment http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000078.