Introduction – Short Scales for the Assessment of Psychological Constructs in Surveys

Abstract

Psychological constructs become more and more important in social surveys. Scales assessing these constructs are usually developed with the focus on an individual diagnosis. Therefore, they are in most cases much too lengthy to be assessed in surveys. For such settings extremely short measures validated for the total population are needed. In the present special issue the development and psychometric properties of six short scales are presented assessing constructs like personality, physical attractiveness and intelligence. All of the instruments presented can be used by the scientific community free of charge.