The Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised (MIPS-R) in Portugal: Gender Differences

This study aims to determine whether males and females differ in the personality styles mesured with the Portuguese version of the Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised, MIPS-R (Millon, 2004). The MIPS-R is a 180-item, True/False inventory designed to measure personality styles of normally functioning adults between the ages of 18 and 65+. It is a theory-based inventory, grounded in biosocial and evolutionary theory, and comprises 12 pairs of scales organized into three main areas: Motivating Styles – that assess what purposes and goals direct individual’s behaviour; Thinking Styles – that describe cognitive processes, the sources employed to gather knowledge about life and the ways in which people evaluate and organize experiences, once apprehended; Behaving Styles – that represent different ways of interacting with others. Gender differences in some personality styles are theoretically expected (Millon, 2004) and have been empirically confirmed (Millon, 1994, 2004; Sánchez López, et al., 2001). This study was carried out with a sample of 280 participants, 120 males (age average = 35,85; standard deviation = 11,44) and 160 females (age average = 34,63; standard deviation = 10,93). Preliminary data analysis point to significant differences between men and women in the Other-Nurturing Style (p=.006), the Internally Focused Style (p=.036), the Thought-Guided Style (p=.000), the Feeling-Guided Style (p=.003), the Unconventional/Dissenting Style (p=.013) and the Cooperative/Agreeing Style (p=.012). The are compared with those obtained with the original test (Millon, 1994,2004) and its spanish adaptation (Sánchez López, et al., 2001).Instituto de Psicologia das Relações Humanas, Centro de Psicometria e de Psicologia da Educaçã