... Trait theory. However, his questionnaires failed to take into account gender, age and culture and have been criticised for their lack of accuracy. Since Allport, questionnaires have developed greatly to avoid many of the difficulties they have faced. Developments in depth, strategies, layout and their phrasing have all produced much more efficient results. At a most basic level, the subjects' age, gender and culture should be taken into account when composing questionnaires: It may be inappropriate to have the same questions for a six year old, as it would be for a student or a sixty year old. The 'Personality Inventories' (MMPI) developed questionnaires to use a number of different scales to measure the extent of one's closeness to a particular psychiatric group, whether it is neuroticism, extroversion or psychoticism. This notion was first taken up by Maudsley in 1959, who measured extroversion and neuroticism. Eysenck, five years later, introduced ...

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