Big Five personality test
The five-factor model — the trait framework with the strongest research base behind it.
50 questions · about 7 minutes
About this assessment
The Big Five is the trait model most personality research is built on. Rather than sorting you into a type, it scores you on five broad dimensions that decades of studies keep recovering across languages and cultures. Your answers are scored against ten questions per dimension, and the result describes tendencies, not a verdict.
What it measures
- Openness
- Appetite for ideas, novelty and abstraction.
- Conscientiousness
- Order, follow-through and attention to detail.
- Extraversion
- Where your energy comes from and goes.
- Agreeableness
- Warmth, trust and concern for others.
- Emotional volatility
- How strongly and how often your mood shifts.
Question source
IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers (public domain)
Read the licenceCommon questions
Is this personality test free, and do I need an account?
It is free, and there is no account, no email address and no sign-up. Fifty questions, results immediately, nothing required from you to see them.
What are the Big Five personality traits?
Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional volatility — five broad dimensions that decades of research keep recovering when personality descriptions are analysed statistically, across many different languages and cultures.
The important difference from a type system is that these are scales, not boxes. You are not sorted into one of sixteen kinds of person; you get a position on each of five continua, and most people land somewhere in the middle on most of them.
How is this different from the MBTI?
The Big Five scores you on five continuous scales; the MBTI sorts people into sixteen types by splitting four scales at their midpoint. That split is the substantive disagreement — scores on these traits are distributed continuously with most people near the middle, so cutting at the midpoint puts two people with nearly identical scores into different types, and the type someone gets is often different when they retake it.
The Big Five is what academic personality research overwhelmingly uses. TraitQ is not affiliated with the MBTI® trademark holders in any way.
How accurate is this test?
The five-factor structure itself is among the better-replicated findings in psychology, and the fifty questions here come from the International Personality Item Pool, a public-domain item bank developed for research use.
What that does not mean is that your scores are a verdict. This is a self-report questionnaire measuring how you describe yourself today. It does not measure ability, does not predict job performance, and is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument. Scores also shift somewhat with mood and life circumstances, so a result taken during a hard month is a result taken during a hard month.
How long does it take?
About seven minutes for fifty questions. If you close the tab partway through, your answers are kept and you resume where you stopped.