Ten item personality inventory (TIPI)

The TIPI was written by three psychologists, Samuel Gosling, Peter Rentfrow and William Swann, for studies in which a longer questionnaire does not fit. Each statement is a pair of descriptive words, such as "Extraverted, enthusiastic", and you say how well the pair describes you, from disagree strongly to agree strongly.

It measures five traits that psychologists call the Big Five: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experiences. Each trait is a line with two ends, and most people are somewhere between them. Neither end is better than the other.

Every trait has two statements. One is worded in the direction of the trait and the other in the opposite direction, so that a person who answers every statement the same way does not end up with a high score everywhere. Answers are numbers from one to seven.

The statement worded in the opposite direction is counted backwards, so that a higher number always means more of the trait: an answer of 2 counts as 6. A trait's score is the average of its two statements, so it lies between one and seven too. The list of statements below marks the backwards ones with an R and says which two statements make up each trait.

The TIPI is short on purpose. Its authors describe it as a tool for when time is very limited, and they accept that a very short measure is less precise than a longer one. Two statements cannot cover everything a trait includes, and a single odd answer moves a score a long way. Treat the result as a rough sketch of how you see yourself on the day you answered.

It does not tell you what kind of person you are, what job to take or how you will act in a given situation. If you want a finer picture of the same five traits, a longer questionnaire gives one, and the personality tests of this site include longer ones.

The quick personality test asks exactly these statements, in this order, and shows your answers as five scales. How the site works out and words its results is described on the methodology page.