The Big Five Personality Project Personality Test

Personality Research Overview

Personality psychologists are interested in what differentiates one person from another and why we behave the way that we do. Personality research, like any science, relies on quantifiable concrete data which can be used to examine what people are like. This is where the Big Five plays an important role (take the test to see your results ).

The Big Five was originally derived in the 1970s by two independent research teams—Paul Costa and Robert McCrae at the National Institutes of Health, and Warren Norman at the University of Michigan/Lewis Goldberg at the University of Oregon—who took slightly different approaches to reach the same conclusions: most human personality traits can be boiled down to five broad dimensions of personality, regardless of language or culture:

These five dimensions were derived by asking thousands of people hundreds of questions and then analyzing the data with a statistical procedure known as factor analysis. It is important to realize that the researchers did not set out to find five dimensions, but that five dimensions emerged from their analyses of the data. In scientific circles, the Big Five is now the most widely accepted and used model of personality (though of course many other systems are used in pop psychology and work contexts; e.g., the MBTI).

For the past several decades, we have been using the Big Five to study personality in terms of how it changes over time and how it relates to other variables (such as self-esteem, lead exposure, and even dog vs cat people). During this period of time, we have collected personality data from literally millions of people from around the world.

Analyses of the data have revealed a number of interesting findings about personality, and have allowed us to identify some major patterns in our personalities. For example, contrary to the then prevailing view, our findings suggest that personality is not “set like plaster” at age 30. Instead, personality continues to change throughout life , with conscientiousness and agreeableness increasing throughout adulthood, for example.

We want to emphasize that we are talking about generalizations here, and these generalizations don't apply to all people. To illustrate, consider the generalization that men are generally taller than women. This does not mean that every man is taller than every woman. Instead, it means that, on average, men are taller than women. The same logic applies to research findings about personality. For example, while people on average tend to become more conscientious as they get older, not everyone follows this pattern.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Big Five Project Personality website

1. What is the feedback based on?

All the feedback you see here is based on statistical analyses of personality data collected from over 10,000 people. None of the feedback is based on our intuitions or theories about personality. In short, the feedback is entirely driven by the data we have collected.

2. Why is the feedback sometimes very different from how I see myself?

The feedback is not meant to suggest that everyone who scores high on Extraversion (or another trait) will be exactly as we describe them. As noted above, the feedback is based on generalizations derived from our research and from the work of other researchers in the field. It is inevitable that some people will not fit in with these generalizations. If you feel the feedback did not match you very well, this could be one reason why.

3. Where do the personality questions come from?

The questions come from our research and research by others on personality, lifestyles, values, and attitudes. The Big Five questions used on this site are from the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), developed by Christopher J. Soto (Colby College) and Oliver John (University of California, Berkeley). Most of the other questions are written by current academic researchers investigating various hypotheses about personality.

4. Why does the feedback sometimes give contradictory information?

Sometimes the feedback will give respondents apparently contradictory feedback. This is an unfortunate consequence of making generalizations. Quite often, individuals cannot be captured by the general trends derived from analyses of large numbers of people. Of course, while our generalizations do get it wrong sometimes they tend to get it right more often than not.

5. Why were there questions about location?

As part of our research, we are interested in understanding regional differences in personality. Some analyses suggest that people living in different regions of the U.S. have distinct personality traits. To explore the nature of these differences, we have examined the links between a region's personality and various environmental features. For example, we found that a state's personality is related to factors like precipitation (higher precipitation is associated with higher negative emotionality), population density (dense areas are linked to higher Openness and lower Agreeableness), and ethnic diversity (more diversity correlates with higher Openness). We have also discovered relationships between personality and other factors, such as voting behavior, health outcomes, and mortality rates.

One key question that arises is whether the environment shapes personality, whether people choose environments that align with their personality traits, or whether some other variable influences both personality and the environment. For instance, people high in Openness might move to densely populated and culturally diverse areas, or living in such areas might cause individuals to develop greater Openness. To investigate these possibilities, we ask participants about their birthplace, current place of residence, and the duration of time spent in each location. This information helps us explore the causal relationship between personality and environment.

We also ask participants how much they like or liked living in certain places. This helps us understand whether individuals prefer regions where their personalities "match" the dominant personality traits of the region. For example, would an open and disagreeable person prefer living in an area where most people are also open and disagreeable, or in a place where the average person is narrow-minded and agreeable? This idea is rooted in research on person-environment fit, which suggests that people tend to seek and create environments that reflect and reinforce their dispositions and self-views. Research has shown that alignment between a person's traits and their environment can have significant impacts on both physical and mental health.

6. Where can I learn more about the Big Five?

7. How can researchers work with the Big Five Inventory or the dataset?

For researchers interested in working with the Big Five Inventory (BFI-2), please see a PDF version of the BFI-2, developed by Christopher J. Soto and Oliver John. For those interested in collaborating using the Gosling–Potter Internet Personality Project dataset, please review the published papers page for details on accessing and working with the dataset.

Finally, the following two citations may be of use to those interested in understanding more about the Big Five: