Free Online Personality Tests

The Big Five Tests

The following selection of free online personality tests measure what many psychologists consider to be the five fundamental dimensions of personality. In scientific circles, the Big Five is the most widely accepted and used model of personality.

The five-factor model is comprised of five personality dimensions (OCEAN): Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (the factor names vary a little among authors). The Big Five was originally derived in the 1970's by two independent research teams (Paul Costa/Robert McCrae and Warren Norman/Lewis Goldberg). Both teams concluded that most human personality traits consist of five broad dimensions of personality, regardless of language or culture.

The factors are dimensions, not types, so people vary continuously on them, with most people falling in between the extremes. They are stable over a 45-year period beginning in young adulthood (Soldz & Vaillant, 1999) and are also genetic, at least in part.(Jang, McCrae, Angleitner, Riemann, & Livesley, 1998; Loehlin, McCrae, Costa, & John, 1998) which means you can either thank or blame your parents depending on your results.

LEARN ABOUT OCEAN
This short video explains and gives some good examples of each of the five dimensions.

Free Online Big Five Personality Tests

Five Factor Personality Test
This online version of the Big 5 inventory was developed for use in online psychological research projects and contains the 41 items with some additional questions. Once you have submitted the test for scoring, you will be told your scores on the five basic dimensions and given some information about what they mean. (Provided by the Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, UK)

The Big Five Personality Test
As you are rating yourself on this test you are encouraged to rate another person. By rating someone else you tend to receive a more accurate assessment of your own personality. Also, you will be given a personality profile for the person you rate, which will allow you to compare yourself to this person on each of five basic personality dimensions. (By Samuel D. Gosling)

Free Big Five Personality Test
The tests at SimilarMinds.com are developed based on scientific measures to ensure test validity. Some of the free tests are experimental versions but even those tests are made up of pre-tested and validated questions. The Big Five is the most proven personality test in the academic research community presently. This version includes 50 questions.

The Big Five Minitest
Based on responses to 40 adjectives, this questionnaire provides scores on the Big Five dimensions of personality. It is designed to give you a sense of what the dimensions mean, which can be useful introduction to the Big Five (by C.George Boeree)

Personality Patterns
The Personality Patterns application is based on an algorithm that scores unique personality traits rather than rough "buckets" of personality types. To describe each person, the algorithm uses 45 different personality traits, each scored on a separate scale, resulting in unique depictions of one’s personality. You'll need to create a Signal Patterns account to view your interactive results.

The 16PF Test
Cattell was a British and American psychologist whose theory of personality factors and the instrument used to measure them are known respectively as the 16 personality factor model and the 16PF Questionnaire.

According to Cattell human personality traits could be summarized by 16 personality factors (PF) or main traits.He called these 16 factors "source traits" because he believed they provide the underlying source for the surface behaviours we think of as personality. He described these 16 traits on a continuum, everybody has some degree of every trait. The 16PF questionnaire determins where on the continuum an individual falls.

Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Model has been greatly criticized by many researchers however, through investigation into to the validity of Cattell's model researchers did discover the Big Five Factors, which have been monumental in understanding personality as we know it today. 

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding
of ourselves"
Carl Gustav Jung

Free Online Jung Type Personality Tests

These tests are based on the work of Carl Jung, Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs. Similar in theory to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) they measure four factors, Introversion/Extroversion, Thinking/Feeling, Intuition/Sensing, and Judging/Percieving. The possible combinations of these four preferences result in 16 different personality types. This video does a nice job of explaining the dimensions.

Discover Your Type

To discover your type and what that means, take one of the tests below.

Personality Test
My Personality

“Personality is the supreme realisation of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence, coupled with the greatest possible freedom
of self-determination.”
[C.G. Jung, 1875-1961]

Free Temperament Type Tests

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter
Temperament is a configuration of observable personality traits, such as habits of communication, patterns of action, and sets of characteristic attitudes, values, and talents. It also encompasses personal needs, the kinds of contributions that individuals make in the workplace, and the roles they play in society. Dr. David Keirsey identified four basic temperaments as the Artisan, the Guardian, the Rational, and the Idealist.Each temperament has its own unique qualities. They are based on the interaction of two basic dimensions of human behaviour: our communication and our action, in other words, what we say and what we do.


Enneagram SamplerTest
The Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator Sampler is a free test that serves as an introduction to the complete Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator. It usually takes about 10 minutes to complete this personality test.

The typology defines nine personality types (called "enneatypes") which are indicated by the points of a geometric figure called an enneagram. Although widely promoted in the business world the Enneagram is not a typology that is commonly taught or researched in academic psychology as it has been criticized as being difficult to test or validate scientifically.

“It seems to me that each person is asking, 'Who am I, really? How can I get in touch with this real self, underlying
all my surface behaviour?
How can I become myself?'”
Carl Rogers

The Multiple Intelligence and Learning Style Tests

The Multiple Intelligences concepts and VAK (or VARK or VACT) learning styles models offer relatively simple and accessible methods to understand and explain people's preferred ways to learn and develop. This digital story, (prepared by Heidi McKnight) gives a brief overview of Dr. Howard Gardner's theory of Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Mulitiple Intelligence Test
This is an interactive worksheet which produces a Multiple Intelligences wheel based upon Gardner's eight multiple intelligences.Knowing your 3 main intelligence strengths can guide you to the most appropriate job type and learning activities.

VARK Learning Preference Test
VARK is a questionnaire that provides users with a profile of their learning preferences. These preferences are about the ways that they want to take-in and give-out information. VARK isn't technically a learning style as a learning style has 18+ dimensions (preferences for temperature, light, food intake, biorhythms, working with others, deep and surface approaches). VARK is about one preference - your preference for taking in, and putting out information in a learning context. Although it is a part of learning style we consider it an important part because people can do something about it. Some other dimensions are not open to change.

“You'd think you'd know what all your natural strengths are, but not necessarily. The last thing the fish knows about is the water.”

Other Free Online Type Tests

The Political Compass
The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. After you've completed the 3-5 minute questionnaire, you'll be given the compass, with your own special position on it.

Lüscher Colour Test
The Lüscher colour test is a psychological test invented by Dr. Max Lüscher in Basel, Switzerland. Lüscher believed that sensory perception of colour is objective and universally shared by all, but that colour preferences are subjective, and that this distinction allows subjective states to be objectively measured by using test colours.Lüscher believed that because the colour selections are guided in an unconscious manner, they reveal the person as they really are, not they perceive themselves or would like to be perceived.

The Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) | Excellerate SDI»

Organisations build “frameworks” that provide us with what needs to be done to ensure success. However, it is people and the way they relate to each other that will often dictate the degree of success.

Differing work styles and conflict can lead to reduced efficiency, ineffective teamwork, increased employee absence, the loss of good people and customers. People can work together more effectively when they better understand themselves, their co-workers and customers; and when they feel more in control of their own behaviour choices.

Learn about one of the powerful tools Excellerate works with in its Coaching, Leadership and Team Development programmes. It's simple but very effective in opening the doors to meaningful insight and informed action.