The Big 5 Personality Traits
Personality is tough to classify because everyone is so unique.
Some companies use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator because it puts people into one of 16 categories. If you have ever seen a person list 4 capital letters like INTJ or ESFP on their dating profile that is what they are referencing.
While companies like the ease of Myers Briggs this method is not favored by the academics who study personality. Most of them prefer the “Big Five” personality traits model.
They are:
- openness to experience
- conscientiousness
- extraversion
- agreeableness
- neuroticism
Personality tests are normally about 100 questions that show people a statement and ask them on a scale of 1-5 how accurately that statement describes them.
You might get a statement like “I have a kind word for everyone” then be asked to check 1 of 5 boxes.
This produces accurate results but it is boring and it takes a long time.
I studied the big 5 traits and talked to some researchers. We came up with a 10 question survery. The results are not as accurate, but it is fun and it does a pretty good job.
For each of the five traits we came up with 2 questions that are short and fun.
For example when it comes to the trait agreeableness the site asks “In large groups I tend to be” and the options are Really Shy, Kinda Shy, Neutral, Kinda Outgoing, Really Outgoing.
When we had 10 questions we threw 1 out and added a question about politics because a lot of people only want to date people with similar political views these days.
If you would like to learn more about the big 5 personality traits here is the wikipedia page and here is an example of a typical 100 question test.
