A Shorter Version of the Revised Francis Psychological Type and Emotional Temperament Scales (FPTETS-R)

Abstract

Abstract: The Francis Psychological Type and Emotional Temperament Scales (FPTETS) operationalize the psychological-type model of personality alongside emotional temperament. The scales have been widely used in research as continuous variables that explain a wide range of religious beliefs and attitudes. The full instrument consists of five 10-item scales so a shorter version would be useful in longer surveys where completion time needs to be minimized. This study uses data from 700 Church of England clergy who completed the revised version of the FPTETS to reduce the 10-item scales to 6-item scales. Ant colony optimization was found to be a better way of selecting the final items than reliability optimization alone because it balanced individual scale reliabilities with maintaining the factor structure of the overall instrument. The selected scales were validated using data from 1,194 lay people from the Church of England, and two samples of 884 clergy and 2,765 lay people from the Episcopal Church (USA). The short scales are commended for use where the need is for continuous scale scores rather than producing psychological typologies.