Author(s):
Pires, Rute 
; Fagulha, Teresa ; Silva, Danilo R.
Date: 2007
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/4192
Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
Subject(s): Gender differences; Personality styles; The Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised
Description
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).
