My clients sometimes ask me if I could do a personality assessment with them. Although I don’t think that’s usually necessary, I understand that learning more about our own personality, and how we compare to other people, can be fascinating and may inform our choices. And the answer is yes, I can. But so can you, if you want.
We are living in a wonderful open-source age, where the best things (especially the most scientific things) may be free, if we know where to find them.
Here, for example, is a short version of the IPIP-NEO personality test:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm.
It looks at 5 broad dimensions (also known as the “Big Five” in the field of personality research), and 30 subdomains of personality. This short version has 120 items to complete. If you feel intrigued or ambitious, you can also do the original long version, which has 300 items: http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/
These questionnaires fully rely on your own honesty and self-awareness, they do not claim to reveal any hidden, secret information.
A word of caution: When you look at your results, read the explanation of each dimension and sub-facet carefully. Some concepts (e.g., “morality”; “intellect”) are used differently than in our everyday language!
Coming up: I’ll review another free self-assessment soon – one that will be career oriented, based on Holland’s Occupational Themes.
Update to this post (9/24/14):
Psychology Today also offers a free short version of the Big Five Personality Test.
[…] my last post, where I discussed a free personality self-assessment, I promised to write more about self-assessments, in particular provide information about a test […]