Personality Type Test: 16 Types and 30 Facets of Character
An online personality test built on a real instrument: IPIP-NEO-120 from the open International Personality Item Pool, in ten languages. You get a four-letter code and a full Big Five profile — percentiles, and all thirty facets of character.
How to take the test
Full — 120 statements, about 15 minutes, all thirty facets at full precision. Quick — 60 statements, about 7 minutes, the same thirty facets with a wider spread.
Rate each statement on a five-point scale for how accurately it describes you. There are no right answers, and the test deliberately never shows which trait an item measures.
See your four-letter code, five traits with percentiles, a breakdown of all thirty facets, and what stands out about you most. The report downloads as a PDF.
Find your four-letter type and break your character down to individual facets
Features
What you can do
- Find your four-letter personality type and see how stable each letter is
- Get a Big Five profile with percentiles across five traits
- Break your character down across all thirty facets, not five broad scales
- Check how carefully you answered
- Compare your profile with another person or with your own earlier run
- Download the full report as a PDF or share a link to the result
How the test works
The five Big Five traits — neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness — are measured by 120 statements: 24 per trait, 4 for each of six facets. Some items are worded in reverse, so agreeing with everything does not produce a high score. Raw sums are converted to percentiles using norms from Johnson's open dataset. The four-letter code is derived from those same five traits through the well-known correspondence — and we show that correspondence openly instead of passing the letters off as a measurement of their own.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the MBTI?
No. MBTI® is a registered trademark of The Myers-Briggs Company, and we use neither that instrument nor its items. This test uses IPIP-NEO-120, an open Big Five questionnaire, and the familiar four-letter code is derived from the five measured traits through a known correspondence. We show that derivation openly, because four letters on their own measure nothing.
Why is the Big Five better than a four-letter typology?
Because a person is not one of sixteen boxes. A trait is measured continuously: there is no real difference between 53% extraversion and 49%, yet the letters E and I draw a border between them. That is why five traits and thirty facets are the main result here, and the four letters are a familiar short label attached to it.
What are facets, and why thirty?
A facet is a component of a trait. Two people with identical Conscientiousness can be completely different: one is impeccably organised but slow to start, the other lives in domestic chaos yet finishes everything they begin. Five broad bars cannot see that difference; six facets inside each trait can.
Is the short form as good as the full 120 statements?
The full form is 120 statements, about 15 minutes. The quick form is 60 statements, about 7 minutes: the same thirty facets, but two items per facet instead of four, so individual facets are measured more coarsely. Answers are saved in your browser, so you can stop and come back.
Do the thirty facets and the PDF open right away?
No. All thirty facets, the five-trait breakdown, the PDF report and profile comparison open immediately after you finish — no account, no email, and no upgrade for an extended version.
What does the dashed border around a letter mean?
That the margin was too small, and the letter could flip to its opposite if you took the test again. At the 52nd percentile of extraversion you get the letter E, but you could just as easily have got I. Tests that print such a letter as fact create a precision that is not there.
Where do the percentages come from?
On the five trait bars they are percentiles: the share of people who scored below you. On the four letter cards it is a different number — how far you sit toward THE LETTER THAT IS PRINTED. Extraversion at the 3rd percentile yields the letter I, and the honest figure beside it is 97%, not 3%: you are more introverted than 97% of people. The norms come from John Johnson’s open dataset (US respondents, all genders, 18–75). We do not re-base them by age or sex, because we have no such tables — and we say so instead of inventing precision.
Why is there a block of political questions?
One of the thirty facets in the original questionnaire rests on questions about American political views. We kept it for methodological completeness, but it can be skipped in one tap: Openness to Experience is then scored on the remaining five facets, and the result notes it.
How do I get a run off this computer?
"Start over" clears the current run and "Clear history" removes the saved ones — both act on this browser's storage, which is where the answers and the history live. Two things follow. The runs are per browser and per device, so a result you did at work is not on your phone and clearing one does not clear the other; and a private window keeps nothing at all, which is the simplest option if you are on a machine you share. A share link is not affected by any of this: once sent, it carries its rounded percentages to whoever has it, and clearing your history does not take it back.
Can the result be used for hiring?
No. This is a self-knowledge tool, not a selection instrument. Self-report personality questionnaires are easy to bend towards an expected answer, and deciding about a person on that basis is unsound and restricted by law in many countries.
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