Personality and measurement
Personality tests and assessments
A personality test turns your answers into scores or descriptions of how you tend to think, feel and act. To understand a result, you need to know what questions were asked, how the answers were scored, and what the test was designed to tell you. This collection groups assessments by purpose, including personality traits, workplace behavior, career interests and psychological symptoms. It also explains familiar four-letter personality labels.
What would you like to understand?
01
Which test did I actually take?
The Big Five is a way of grouping personality traits. Many different questionnaires use that model, so “I took a Big Five test” does not identify the questions or scoring rules used. Look for the questionnaire’s name and version; researchers often call this the instrument.
02
What does my score mean?
A raw score is the result of applying the scoring rules to your answers. A percentile describes where that score falls compared with a particular group of people. Knowing the comparison group helps you understand what the number can tell you about yourself.
03
What are psychometric tests?
Psychometric tests use a defined set of questions or tasks and scoring rules to measure characteristics such as personality or ability. This collection focuses on personality-related assessments. If an employer has asked you to take a test, get its exact name, format and official preparation guidance. The entries here explain assessments; they do not provide practice tests.
Read in sequence
Connect the model, the test, and the score
These paths explain what a test aims to measure, how it turns answers into scores, and what those scores can tell you.
Path 1
Follow a model through to a score
Follow the steps from a trait to a result: what the Big Five describes, how a specific questionnaire asks about it, and how a comparison with other people helps interpret the resulting score.
Path 2
Understand a four-letter result
Start with the MBTI’s four pairs of preferences, which produce labels such as INFP. Then read the selected type profiles. They describe preferred ways of approaching situations, such as planning ahead, rather than proving how skilled someone is at a task.
Explore the subjects
Find explanations and assessments grouped by the questions they address.
Trait questionnaires
These questionnaires use your answers to estimate how strongly you show different personality traits. A scale is the set of questions and scoring rules for one trait. Questionnaires differ in the traits they cover, their length, and the evidence for particular uses.
Workplace selection and development tools
These tools are offered for purposes such as discussing communication styles, developing employees or screening job applicants. Evidence that a tool is useful for one purpose does not establish that it works for another. For example, a profile that starts a helpful conversation is not necessarily a sound basis for a hiring decision.
Type and temperament systems
These systems group personality descriptions into categories, using labels such as types, temperaments or colors. The categories come from different frameworks, so a label from one system cannot simply be substituted for a label from another.
Vocational interests
Vocational interests are preferences for kinds of work and activities. Enjoying the idea of working with tools, for example, is different from having the skill to do a particular job. An interest profile can help you explore careers, but cannot choose one for you.
Clinical and symptom measures
The MMPI questionnaires assess a broad range of clinically relevant characteristics and problems. The DASS questionnaires ask about the severity of reported depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. These have different purposes from everyday personality-type quizzes, and a symptom score alone does not establish a diagnosis.
Picture-based assessment and assessment history
The Rorschach asks people to respond to inkblots; the TAT asks for stories about pictures. Interpreting those responses requires a specified procedure and scoring system. The Woodworth questionnaire is included for a different reason: its historical role in the development of structured psychological screening.
Selected MBTI type profiles
These eight entries describe preference combinations in the MBTI framework. They are profiles, not eight separate instruments or a complete list of all sixteen types.
The complete collection
All 30 entries, A–Z
Browse the full collection, including older theories and selected profiles, or filter by name and subject.
1
- 16PF
The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire: questions about your typical behavior, plus a separate measure of reasoning.
C
- California Psychological Inventory
A family of assessments describing interpersonal behavior and everyday personality characteristics.
D
- DASS
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales ask how strongly people experience these symptoms; scores alone do not establish diagnoses.
- DASS 21
The shorter, 21-question DASS and its separate scores for reported depression, anxiety and stress symptoms.
- DISC Assessment
Behavioral-style assessments whose questions, scoring and evidence differ between publishers.
E
- ENFP
A selected MBTI type profile: Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling and Perceiving. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- ESFJ
A selected MBTI type profile: Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling and Judging. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- ESFP
A selected MBTI type profile: Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- ESTJ
A selected MBTI type profile: Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
A questionnaire that measures traits by degree, including why its Psychoticism score is not a psychiatric diagnosis.
F
- Forte Communication Style Profile
A commercial assessment of communication preferences and how people report adapting their behavior to their circumstances.
H
- HBDI
The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument describes thinking preferences. Its four brain quadrants are a metaphor, not a brain measurement.
- Hogan Assessment
A group of workplace assessments covering everyday personality, tendencies that may cause problems, and values.
I
- INFP
A selected MBTI type profile: Introversion, Intuition, Feeling and Perceiving. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- INTJ
A selected MBTI type profile: Introversion, Intuition, Thinking and Judging. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- INTP
A selected MBTI type profile: Introversion, Intuition, Thinking and Perceiving. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
- Inwald Personality Inventory
A questionnaire developed to help screen applicants for high-risk public-safety jobs; its versions require different interpretation.
- ISTP
A selected MBTI type profile: Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Perceiving. The letters describe preferences, not demonstrated abilities.
K
- Keirsey Temperament Sorter
A questionnaire about yourself that organizes personality descriptions into four temperaments and sixteen more specific types.
- Kolbe Test
The Kolbe A Index and its provider’s explanation of the ways people prefer to approach tasks.
M
- MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)
The official instrument, its preference pairs and type interpretations, distinguished from other online tests.
- MMPI
A family of questionnaires used to assess clinically relevant personality characteristics and psychological problems.
N
- Newcastle Personality Assessor
Daniel Nettle’s brief Big Five questionnaire, its development and score interpretation.
R
- RIASEC and Holland Codes
Holland’s six areas of career interest, and why enjoying an activity is different from being skilled at it or suited to a particular job.
- Rorschach Test
An inkblot assessment whose responses are recorded and interpreted through a specified scoring system.
S
- Strength Deployment Inventory
A commercial assessment of how people describe their motives in relationships, responses to conflict and strengths.
T
- Temperament and Character Inventory
Cloninger’s questionnaire describing four temperament and three character dimensions.
- Thematic Apperception Test
An assessment based on stories people tell about pictures, with interpretation tied to the procedure and scoring method.
- True Colors Test
A personality-description and training system using four colors to discuss preferences.
W
- Woodworth Personal Data Sheet
An early questionnaire about psychological symptoms, developed during World War I.
No match. Try a shorter term or a different spelling.
Search the libraryEvidence and commercial interests
Jason Hreha owns Twofold, a personality-assessment product. The evaluation criteria explain how these profiles separate research findings from test providers’ descriptions, and how commercial interests are disclosed. A test’s inclusion in this collection is not a recommendation to use or buy it.