Revised NEO personality inventory profiles of male and female US Air Forcepilots

The study of pilot personality characteristics has a long and controversial history. Personality characteristics seem to be fairly poor predictors of training outcome; however, valid personality assessment is essential to cli nical psychological evaluations. Therefore, the personality characteristics of pilots must be studied to ensure valid clinical assessment. This paper describes normative personality characteristics of U.S. Air Force pilots ba sed on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory profiles of 1,301 U.S. Air For ce student pilots. Compared with male adult norms, male student pilots had higher levels of extraversion and lower levels of agreeableness. Compared w ith female adult norms, female student pilots had higher levels of extraver sion and openness and lower levels of agreeableness. Descriptive statistics and percentile tables for the five domain scores and 30 facet scores are p rovided for clinical use, and a case vignette is provided as an example of the clinical utility of these U.S. Air Force norms.