Sixteen-Factor Personality Profile

Forty-eight statements give a quick profile on sixteen factors: Warmth, Reasoning, Emotional Stability, Dominance, Liveliness, Rule-Consciousness, Social Boldness, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Abstractedness, Privateness, Apprehension, Openness to Change, Self-Reliance, Perfectionism and Tension. Three statements represent each factor, chosen to capture its center.

Cattell identified the sixteen primary factors through decades of factor analysis of personality data (Cattell, Eber and Tatsuoka, 1970). This short profile uses public-domain items from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006), selected from the longer parallel scales.

Each factor is scored from three statements, so scores give a sketch rather than a precise measurement. Each factor has two named poles, for example reserved versus outgoing, or practical versus abstracted, and neither pole is better in itself. The profile is most useful for noticing which factors stand out at either end.

The profile is used for self-reflection and as an introduction to the sixteen-factor model. On this site, the Sixteen Primary-Factor Scales measure the same factors in more depth, the Mini-IPIP gives a quick five-factor profile, and the Workplace Personality Profile describes personality in work terms.

The sixteen construct dimensions draw on broad personality theory covering extraversion, anxiety, independence, and self-control, among others. Item selection follows IPIP convergent-validity standards, and the constructs have been validated in numerous applied settings.

“Make people feel at ease.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Your report explains each of your scale scores in plain language.