About the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) inventory

The Karolinska Scales of Personality are conceived to be quantifications of some crucial personality or temperament dimensions representing qualities of the information processing and arousal systems of the individual, using concepts from psychopathological theories and research, and psychobiological theories of temperament (D Schalling, 1977; D. Schalling, 1978; D. Schalling, Edman, & sberg, 1983). The KSP inventory was initially assembled to constitute tools useful in psychopathy research and in finding biological correlates of relevant personality traits. The inventory consists of 135 items grouped into 15 different scales (see Table 1 below). A collection of KSP papers from 1977-1997 comprises over 170 papers, where about 130 are internationally published original articles (Gustavsson, 1997).

The main areas of research utilizing the KSP has been descriptions of various patient groups (Ekselius, Bengtsson, & von Knorring, 1998; Uvns-Moberg, Arn, Theorell, & Jonsson, 1991; von Knorring, von Knorring, Smigan, Lindberg, & Edholm, 1987) and psychobiological studies

exploring associations between personality traits and biological markers (Farde, Gustavsson, & Jnsson, 1997; Gustavsson et al., 1999; D. Schalling, sberg, Edman, & Oreland, 1987). An additional field where the KSP inventory has been applied is in studies of personality predispositions to health and disease (Ekselius & von Knorring, 1999; Gustavsson, Weinryb, Gransson, Pedersen, & sberg, 1997; Weinryb, Gustavsson, Liljeqvist, Poppen, & Rssel, 1997). The KSP scales have used together with other personality inventories in factor analytic studies aiming at describing the basic personality dimensions (M Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Thornquist, & Kiers, 1991; M. Zuckerman, Kuhlman, & Camac, 1988). When interpreted within the Five Factor Model perspective, the KSP scales have been found to constitute lower-order traits for Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Conscientiousness, but not for Openness (Costa & McCrae, 1992).

The following texts are taken from an unpublished manual of the KSP (references given in these quotes are not given in the reference list below) and a PhD thesis evaluating the KSP.

Quotes from the unpublished KSP manual:

Quotes from a PhD thesis on KSP

References

Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Four ways five factors are basic. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 653-665. Ekselius, L., Bengtsson, A., & von Knorring, L. (1998). Personality traits as determined by means of the Karolinska Scales of Personality in patients with fibromyalgia. Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain, 6, 35-49. Ekselius, L., & von Knorring, L. (1999). Changes in personality traits during treatment with setraline citalopram. British Journal of Psychiatry, 174, 444-448. Farde, L., Gustavsson, J. P., & Jnsson, E. (1997). D2-dopamine receptor density in brain predicts human personality traits. Nature, 385, 590. Gustavsson, J. P. (1997). Validity and stability of self-reported personality traits. Contributions to the evaluation of the Karolinska Scales of Personality. Stockholm: Karolinska Institutet, PhD Thesis. Gustavsson, J. P., Nthen, M. M., Jnsson, E., Neidt, H., Forslund, K., Rylander, G., et al. (1999). No evidence between serotonin transporter gene polymorphisms and personality traits. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsyciatric Genetics), 88, 430-436. Gustavsson, J. P., Weinryb, R. M., Gransson, S., Pedersen, N. L., & sberg, M. (1997). Stability and predictive ability of personality traits across 9 years. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 783-791. Schalling, D. (1977). The trait-situation interaction and the physiological correlates of behavior. In D. Magnusson & N. Endler (Eds.), Personality at the Crossroads; Current Issues in Interactional Psychology (pp. 129-141). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schalling, D. (1978). Psychopathy-related personality variables and the psychophysiology of socialization. In R. D. Hare & D. Schalling (Eds.), Psychopathic Behaviour. Approaches to Research (pp. 85-106). Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Schalling, D., Edman, G., & sberg, M. (1983). Impulsive cognitive style and inability to tolerate boredom: Psychobiological studies of temperamental vulnerability. In M. Zuckerman (Ed.), Biological Bases of Sensation Seeking, Impulsivity, and Anxiety (pp. 123-145). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Schalling, D., sberg, M., Edman, G., & Oreland, L. (1987). Markers for vulnerability to psychopathology: Temperament traits associated with platelet MAO activity. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 76, 172-182. Uvns-Moberg, K., Arn, I., Theorell, T., & Jonsson, C.-O. (1991). Personality traits in a group of individuals with functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract and their correlation with gastrin, somatostatin and oxytocin levels. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 35, 515-523. Weinryb, R. M., Gustavsson, J. P., Liljeqvist, L., Poppen, B., & Rssel, R. J. (1997). A prospective study of personality as predictor of quality of life after pelvic pouch operation. American Journal of Surgery, 173, 83-87. von Knorring, L., von Knorring, A.-L., Smigan, L., Lindberg, U., & Edholm, M. (1987). Personality traits in subtypes of alcoholics. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 48, 523-527. Zuckerman, M., Kuhlman, D. M., Thornquist, M., & Kiers, H. (1991). Five (or three) robust questionnaire scale factors of personality without culture. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 929-941. Zuckerman, M., Kuhlman, M. D., & Camac, C. (1988). What lies beyond E and N? Factor analyses of scales believed to measure basic dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 96-107.