An explicit demonstration of the effect of instrumentation on the relationship of FFM agreeableness with dependency was reported by Haigler and Widiger (2001). They reported correlations of only .04, .17, and .04 with NEO PI-R agreeableness for the SNAP, MMPI-2, and PDQ-4 dependent PD scales (respectively). However, they had also constructed an experimental version of NEO PI-R agreeableness scale by converting each item to its maladaptive variant (e.g., “I try to be courteous to everyone I meet” was revised to “I am overly courteous to everyone I meet,” and “I would rather cooperate with others than compete with them” became “I cooperate with others even when it would be better to compete”). The correlations of SNAP, MMPI-2, and PDQ-4 dependent PD with this maladaptive version of NEO PI-R agreeableness were .57, .66, and .45, respectively.
