What this personality test measures
This free personality test has 96 questions and is built on the HEXACO model, a six-factor account of personality developed by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton. Each of the six factors is measured through four narrower scales from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) — 24 scales in all — and every scale is scored from your answers alone.
We report the six factors as six axes, each with two named ends:
- Energy — Outgoing or Reflective: sociability, social boldness, liveliness, expressiveness.
- Cognition — Visionary or Practical: creativity, inquisitiveness, aesthetic appreciation, unconventionality.
- Values — Empathic or Analytical: forgiveness, gentleness, flexibility, patience.
- Structure — Organized or Flexible: organization, diligence, prudence, perfectionism.
- Resilience — Steady or Sensitive: fearfulness, anxiety, dependence and sentimentality, each counted in reverse.
- Self-presentation — Unassuming or Status-seeking: directness, even dealing, material indifference, understatement.
How the test works
You see one statement at a time and answer on a five-point scale, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. There are no right answers and no timer. Allow roughly 15 to 20 minutes — an estimate from the question count, not a measured average. Your answers are saved as you go, so you can stop and come back.
At question 96 you can stop, or continue to 192. The longer sitting puts eight statements behind every scale instead of four, which narrows the uncertainty on each score. Either way, no account is needed to take the test.
What your free results show
Your free result places you on all six axes, gives you one of 64 archetypes, and adds a short summary written from your own answers. The 64 archetypes come from the six axes: each axis lands on one of its two ends, and two ends across six axes make 64 combinations. You can read every one of them on the archetypes page before you start.
A score runs from 0 to 100 and is the average of your answers on that scale, rescaled. It is not a percentile: a 70 means your answers sat high on the response scale, not that you scored above 70% of people. The full report, an optional purchase, shows all 24 scales with a band on each — for example 62 ±5 — computed from how consistently you answered.
How it differs from a 16-type or Big Five test
A 16-type test sorts you into one of sixteen boxes from four either-or letters. This test keeps each axis as a continuous score, so someone who sits near the middle is shown near the middle rather than pushed to one side.
Compared with the Big Five, HEXACO adds a sixth factor, Honesty-Humility — here called Self-presentation. Ashton and Lee report that it accounts for differences between people that the five-factor model leaves unexplained. If you want the Big Five itself, it is on the tests page as a separate, shorter test.
What it cannot tell you
This is a self-report test: it measures how you describe yourself today. It is not a clinical assessment and should not be used to make hiring, medical or other important decisions about anyone. There are no population norms behind these scores yet, and the methodology page lists the reliability figures IPIP publishes for each scale, including the one that falls short.
Questions about the test
Is this personality test really free?
Yes. Taking the test and reading your result — your archetype, your position on all six axes and a written summary — costs nothing and needs no account. A longer written report is available as an optional one-time purchase; the pricing page has the details.
How long does the test take?
About 15 to 20 minutes for 96 questions, and roughly twice that if you continue to 192. There is no timer, and your answers are saved as you go.
What is the HEXACO model?
HEXACO is a six-factor model of personality: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience. It grew out of studies of the words people in many languages use to describe one another, and differs from the Big Five mainly by adding Honesty-Humility.
Should I answer quickly or think about each question?
Answer with your first honest reaction, as you usually are rather than as you would like to be. Overthinking a statement tends to pull answers toward the middle or toward how you hope to come across.
Can my result change if I retake it?
It can, a little. Scores near the middle of an axis can land on either end from one sitting to the next, which is why the full report shows a band on every score. You can retake the test at any time; your earlier result is kept.