The best strategy for personality scale construction may be a utilitarian concept rather than a psychometric one. Some specific suggestions are given. (Author/JKS)

The development of the Privacy Preference Scale is described. Six subscales were constructed from a principal axis factor analysis. The ability of the subscales to differentiate between age and sex groups, and their relationship to personality measures and to self-reported privacy oriented behavior are presented. (Author/RC)

Common items, items which appear on several scales on psychological tests, are investigated in this study. It is concluded that the common item problem is not a serious one in personality measurement. (Author/JKS)

Item overlap coefficient (IOC) formulas are discussed, providing six warnings about their calculation and interpretation and some explanations of why item overlap influences the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory factor structures. (SLD)

A general linear latent trait model for continuous item responses is described. The special unidimensional case for continuous item response is the model of K. G. Joreskog (1971) of congeneric item response. The correspondence between models for continuous and dichotomous item responses is shown to be closer than usually supposed. (SLD)

The usefulness of the confirmatory factor analysis model of D. Sorbom (1974) to estimate invariant difficulty and discrimination item parameters on a personality scale was supported in a study using responses of 834 undergraduates to the Social Worry Scale of the Anxious Thoughts Inventory (A. Wells, 1994). (SLD)

Objective criteria for evaluating the Eysenck Personality Inventory's internal structure are discussed. An approach based on targeted rotations and the test's scoring key is proposed as a means of providing common criteria. Data from earlier structure and test results for 195 undergraduates support the utility of 3 criteria developed. (SLD)