Free Big Five Personality Test

What the Big Five test measures

The Big Five is the most widely used model of personality in research. It describes people by where they sit on five broad traits, rather than sorting them into types. Most people land somewhere in the middle on most traits.

This test uses the 50-item Big-Five Factor Markers from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), written by Lewis Goldberg. The items are in the public domain, so the full test and the full result are free here.

How the scoring works

You rate each statement from 1 (very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate). Ten statements belong to each trait. Statements worded in the opposite direction, like "Don't talk a lot", are reverse-keyed: a 5 counts as 1, a 4 as 2, and so on (6 minus your answer). Then the ten values for each trait are added up.

Each trait score runs from 10 to 50. The score comes from a fixed table in the page code, the same one every time. There is no model guessing and no comparison group, so we do not show percentiles.

Where the items come from

Source: the IPIP 50-item scale, Goldberg (1992), at https://ipip.ori.org/new_ipip-50-item-scale.htm. The item wording and the plus or minus keys are copied from that page.

The five traits

• Extraversion. How much energy you take from company, talking and being noticed. A high score fits someone who starts conversations, enjoys groups and is at ease being the center of attention. A low score fits someone who prefers smaller groups, listens more than they talk and likes to stay in the background.
• Agreeableness. How much you lean toward warmth, trust and looking after other people's feelings. A high score fits someone who is interested in people, sympathizes easily and takes time for others. A low score fits someone who is direct and skeptical, puts their own view first and is less moved by other people's worries.
• Conscientiousness. How much you plan ahead, keep order and follow through. A high score fits someone who is prepared, likes order and a schedule, and pays attention to details. A low score fits someone who is relaxed about tidiness and schedules, and more spontaneous with time and tasks.
• Emotional Stability. How steady your mood stays under stress. This is the same trait many tests call Neuroticism, scored the other way round: a high Emotional Stability score means low Neuroticism. A high score fits someone who stays calm, worries little and is not easily upset. A low score fits someone who feels stress and mood changes strongly, often with a sharp eye for what might go wrong.
• Intellect / Imagination. How much you enjoy ideas, words, imagination and abstract thinking. Many tests call this Openness. A high score fits someone who has a vivid imagination, likes abstract ideas and enjoys reflecting. A low score fits someone who prefers the concrete and the practical to abstract or theoretical talk.

Reading your result

The low, middle and high bands are equal thirds of the 10 to 50 scale (10-23, 24-36, 37-50). They describe where your score sits on the scale, not how you compare with other people.

This is a self-report questionnaire for curiosity and reflection. It is not a clinical or diagnostic tool, and it does not predict how well you will do in a job or a relationship. Your answers stay on this device.