Forget the science, take me to the quiz!
I’m interested, tell me more…
In psychometrics, the ‘Big Five’ personality markers are five key dimensions of personality which were broadly categorised after it became apparent there was no universally agreed scale or framework used by researchers to measure and compare individuals’ behaviour and personality1. After decades of research, the term “Big Five” was coined by Lewis Goldberg in 1981 to condense and provide a common vocabulary for the broad systems of personality description. This model has since become the most widely accepted approach among experts for analysing personality traits and as such is a commonly used framework for ongoing personality research2.
The five broad markers (often abbreviated by the mnemonic OCEAN) are:
- Openness (sometimes called Intellect/Imagination). Includes traits like having wide interests and being imaginative or insightful.
- Conscientiousness. Includes traits like organisation, thoroughness, and planning.
- Extroversion. This encompasses more specific traits like talkativeness, energy, and assertiveness.
- Agreeableness. Includes traits like sympathy, kindness and affection.
- Neuroticism Includes traits like tenseness, moodiness, and anxiousness.
Each factor consists of a cluster of more specific traits that correlate together to produce an overall picture of who you are3.
The Quiz
The questions presented in the Who Am I? Personality Quiz are either positively or negatively associated with one of the above five characteristics within the Big 5 model. The quiz gathers results on a broad sliding scale for each category to determine your ‘personality’. Whilst there is no universally agreed set of questions to ask in any personality quiz based on Big 5 marker theory, for the purposes of this quiz I’ve used the 50-question sample set of questions used in the open source IPIP version4 which selects its sample questions from a variety of data sets.
Although this quiz was developed primarily for fun, the questions and answers are based around actual research into the Big 5 model in personality questionnaires.
REFERENCES
- ^ John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (p. 114–158). The Guilford Press.
- ^ John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (p. 102–138). Guilford Press.
- ^ Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.4.1.26
- ^ International Personality Item Pool. https://ipip.ori.org/