I assume most readers know that the “Big Five Personality Test” is really the only one psychologists feel to be scientifically valid. FiveThirtyEight has a post on the topic up. I’ve taken a quiz on this test before. I figured I would share mine below (no great surprises).
You might want to consider taking Jordan Peterson’s Big Five Aspect Scale, which is based on more refined factor analysis. Each of the 5 major traits divide into two, and these finer grained traits are more predictive than the broader traits. Openness divides into Interest in Ideas and Interest in Aesthetics. Conscientiousness divides into Industriousness and Orderliness. Extraversion divides into Assertiveness and Enthusiasm. Agreeableness divides into Politeness and Compassion. Neuroticism divides into Volatility and Withdrawal.
https://understandmyself.com/personality-assessment
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.513.2517&rep=rep1&type=pdf
The paper that this is based on has accumulated about 800 citations since being released about 10 years ago.
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I’m surprised at your moderate Agreeableness scores. You can be pretty blunt to harsh (low Politeness), and you’re also libertarian leaning in your politics (low Compassion).
You are likely quite high in Interest in Ideas, so mere 73 on Openness probably means that you are only moderate in Interest in Aesthetics.
You seem pretty productive, so your moderately low Conscientiousness score is probably because of low Orderliness. High Orderliness is the major personality predictor of religiosity (and social conservatism) and you are not very religious. Industriousness has less relevance to religious and political orientation.
I wonder if there is a real difference between “Big Five” and MBTI, or if (excluiding the Neuroticism thing) is simply a quantitative version of MBTI (but even many MBTI test give quantitative results).
I like the fact that this test reports “scores” rather than a set of Myers-Briggs style binary outcomes. Having worked in an organization where some divisions fetishized those four-letter codes, it’s a refreshing change.
Razib — you could do a little repeatability experiment to test the “error bars” by taking the test again in a week or two, and seeing how the scores compare. I’ve read that time of day, sleep and satiety status (how much sleep did you get last night? how long since your last meal / snack?), menstrual cycle phase for women all can affect the outcome of these tests.
38, 48, 88, 15, 79
That’s the first test like that that didn’t feel like the results were from a fortune cookie – seems to jibe with reality but isn’t too broad.
I’m not surprised at my own scores on the test – 25 on extraversion, 77 on agreeableness, 31 on conscientiousness, 7 on neuroticism, and 77 on openness. Thinking back on myself from childhood, I think I’ve always been disorganized, emotionally stable, and open. However, I started out in life being much more extroverted and less agreeable. The experience of being a socially awkward nerd caused me first to clam up a lot when I was a teenager, and also to be really vigilant about trying not to offend people on person (since I always seemed to be doing it by accident).
Color me very surprised at your low conscientiousness score, as you seem to be (judging by your online product) a very hard working and industrious sort, not a disorganized procrastinator like myself.
Razib’s is very close to mine, though I’m more open, less neurotic, and much less agreeable
Thursday:
Tend to be persuaded by this 10 factor conception, as I actually prefer to be polite all of the time. Am just ready to fight immediately
HEXACO, man, not the Big 5.
re: conscientiousness. well i’m not as organized as i like to be. i feel like i do get shit done…but not as well as i’d like. perhaps i’m hard on myself?
re: agreeableness. i think i score lower than my friends in real life would attest to. but i’m good at keeping my mouth shut in many situations. but enuf times i’m candid that i alienate people. i am social and have plenty of friends.
Hi Here is mine
73 Extraversion
98 Agreeableness
54 Conscientiousness
19 Neuroticism
89 Openness to Experience
being friendly does not always cut it with those that like to push their power status, of which i abhor ugh unfriendly pples
mlee, beware psychopaths and power status people (narcissists); they see your positive personality traits as weakness and mark you as a potential victim. Not being paranoid. You do well to abhor them, and would do well to steer well clear of them; they are absolutely toxic to folks like us. You don’t need them, 90% of people are not exploiters like that. I have just seen it happen too often to decent, friendly, well intentioned people who don’t deserve it. Has happened to me too – I now just avoid having anything to do with them, as far as possible.
Not to be confused with people who are good folks but just naturally disagreeable, and often the kind who don’t suffer fools gladly – they are not exploiters. They can just be people who are too honest for their own good, or alienate people by being candid in their opinions. Often such people are golden, often the most valuable, if you just see past their grumpiness and forthright honesty. I had an old English doctor like that, his manner with his patients was like an enraged alligator, but he saved my life at least twice, maybe more. Same guy bred captive orang utans in his spare time, and used to refer to me as a ‘normal anthropoid’; some people might be offended, but coming from him, I just found it amusing – well, true observation and so not offensive.
Sorry, my 5 cents worth.
The problem with the Five Factor Model is not that it’s invalid or unreliable, but rather that it underdescribes personality. What it measures it measures effectively, but there’s much more to being a human.
64, 54, 81, 8, 71
Thursday, Peterson’s Big 5 test is a hot mess. At least, it was when I took it a couple months ago. It asked several variants of the question “Are you very conscientious?” to which I consistently answered “not very”, and as a result it scored me in the bottom 1st percentile for conscientiousness and the 0th percentile for diligence. It would be equally explanatory if they had simply asked me once “Are you conscientious? y/n”. To add insult to inanity, they even included a little report at the end explaining that I have no interest whatsoever in being a productive member of society, which is certainly not true. Similarly, Peterson’s test gave me a super low score for Extraversion, which I think I can also say is objectively false considering my behavior with people. Looking at the comments from when Peterson first announced that his test was live, I saw many complaints along the same lines – and even positive remarks along the same lines, like “wow, I never knew I was in the 0th percentile for XYZ, I’ve got a lot of work to do, thank you so much!”