60 statements, about 5 minutes, no email. Your scores on the five OCEAN traits and their 15 facets, as percentiles, the moment you finish.
Am relaxed and handle stress well
Am outgoing and sociable
Am inventive and find clever ways to do things
Tend to find fault with others
Am dependable and steady
The five-factor model
The Big Five, also called the five-factor model or OCEAN, came out of decades of research into the words people use to describe each other. Each trait is a scale, not a category, and every point on it has strengths. This test splits each trait into the three facets defined by the BFI-2, so two people with the same Extraversion score can still differ in how sociable or how assertive they are.
| Trait | Higher scores | Lower scores | Its three facets |
|---|---|---|---|
| O · Openness BFI-2: Open-Mindedness | Curious, imaginative, drawn to ideas, art and new experiences. | Practical and grounded, happy with what works and what is familiar. | Creative Imagination, Aesthetic Sensitivity, Intellectual Curiosity |
| C · Conscientiousness | Organised, reliable and persistent. You finish what you start. | Flexible and spontaneous, comfortable without a fixed plan. | Responsibility, Productiveness, Organization |
| E · Extraversion | Sociable, talkative and energised by other people. | Reserved and self-contained, recharged by quiet time. | Sociability, Assertiveness, Energy Level |
| A · Agreeableness | Warm, trusting and cooperative. You look after the people around you. | Direct and sceptical, willing to challenge and stand your ground. | Trust, Compassion, Respectfulness |
| N · Neuroticism BFI-2: Negative Emotionality | Feelings register strongly and stay a while. Quick to notice risk. | Calm and steady, slow to worry, quick to recover from setbacks. | Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Volatility |
The Depression and Anxiety facets describe everyday mood and worry. They are not a diagnosis of anything.
How scoring works
Each statement, such as "Am outgoing and sociable", gets a rating from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Twelve statements feed each trait, four for each facet, and some are worded the other way round so that agreeing with everything does not push every score up.
Your ratings for each facet are added together, and the three facets under a trait make that trait's raw score. The scoring runs in your browser the moment you answer the last statement.
Each raw score is turned into a percentile using a table built from 58,401 completed results on this site. A score of 70 means you scored higher than about 70 in every 100 people who took the test.
Our percentiles come from people who took this exact test, not from a textbook curve. That is why answering Neutral to everything does not put you at 50 on every trait.
Accuracy and limits
Accurate enough to describe you consistently, and honest about what it cannot do.
The statements are adapted from the BFI-2, the Big Five Inventory published by Christopher Soto and Oliver John in 2017. In their study the five trait scores were consistent within themselves and held up when the same people answered again eight weeks later. We rewrote the statements in the first person, so "Is outgoing, sociable" becomes "Am outgoing and sociable".
We also check our own version. When people on this site took the test twice, a week or more apart, their trait scores correlated between about 0.7 and 0.8. That is good for a questionnaire, and it also means a score can move a few points between one day and the next.
Want to see a full report before you start? The free personality test on our homepage uses these same statements and shows a live sample report.
What it is
What it is not
Common questions
It is a questionnaire that scores you on the five broad traits psychologists use most often to describe personality: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Instead of putting you in a box, it gives you a score on each one, plus three more detailed facet scores under each trait.
Yes. There is no email to enter, no account to create and nothing to pay. Your full results, with all five traits and 15 facets, open the moment you finish.
OCEAN is a memory aid for the five traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Some people rearrange the letters as CANOE. Both mean the same five-factor model.
Most people finish the 60 statements in about 5 minutes. Go with your first reaction; thinking hard about each one does not make the result more accurate.
Because the middle of the answer scale is not the middle of the people. Most people rate themselves above the midpoint on Openness and Agreeableness, so someone who answers Neutral to every statement lands near the 14th percentile for Openness and the 24th for Agreeableness. That is what comparing with real results, rather than a textbook curve, looks like.
It is one of the most reliable ways to describe personality, within limits. In the original BFI-2 study the five trait scores held up well when people retook them eight weeks later, and on this site people who retook the test a week or more apart got scores that correlated between about 0.7 and 0.8. It still rests on how you see yourself on one day, so treat it as a careful description, not a verdict.
They answer different questions. The 16 Types Personality Test gives you a four-letter type, which is easy to remember and talk about. The Big Five gives you a score on each trait, which keeps the difference between someone just over a line and someone far past it. Researchers mostly use the Big Five for that reason.
Yes, slowly. Traits are fairly stable from year to year, but large studies show that most people become more conscientious, more agreeable and calmer between their twenties and their sixties. A big life change can also shift a score over time.
Keep going
About this page
Michael Hodge (BSc Psychology, University of Wollongong) reviews the scoring of every questionnaire on this site. More about the author.
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Five minutes, five traits, fifteen facets. Free, with no email.