No. Orderliness is the liking for things tidy, planned and in their place, one of the six facets of conscientiousness. Perfectionism is a wider pattern that adds the drive to get work exactly right and the worry about getting it wrong, and those two parts belong to different traits.

Where the scale comes from

The ten statements are the orderliness facet of the IPIP-NEO, such as Like order and Do things according to a plan, with reversed statements such as Leave a mess in my room and Am not bothered by messy people. You rate each on five points, the reversed ones are flipped, and the ten are added, so a score runs from 10 to 50. The IPIP key page gives coefficient alpha of .82 for the scale. No norms have been published for it on its own.

What the research finds

Stoeber and Otto (2006) reviewed the research on perfectionism and separated two parts. Perfectionistic strivings are high standards and wanting things exactly right; perfectionistic concerns are fear of mistakes, doubts about one’s work and the sense that others expect perfection. Strivings go with conscientiousness and with better outcomes; concerns go with neuroticism and with worse ones. The statement Want everything to be “just right.” is the one point where the orderliness scale touches strivings. The rest is tidiness and routine.

Roberts and colleagues (2005) found order to be one of six distinct parts of conscientiousness, separate from industriousness and self-control. Dudley and colleagues (2006) found that among the narrow conscientiousness traits, achievement and dependability predicted job performance best, with order adding less. A tidy desk and a high standard of work are different things, and the research keeps them apart.

What it is not

It is not the drive to do excellent work. That is achievement-striving, a different facet, and the 120-item test scores the two separately.

It is not fear of mistakes. That belongs to neuroticism. A person can love order and be relaxed about errors, or be careless with their surroundings and troubled by every slip.

It is not the opposite of creativity. Orderliness belongs to conscientiousness and creativity to openness, and the two domains vary largely independently of each other.

A low score is not laziness. How hard someone works and whether they finish are other facets.

What it means for your results

A high score means you like things tidy, planned and in their proper place; a low score means you tolerate mess and are not much bothered by untidiness. With no norms for the scale alone, the marker shows where your answers fell in the possible range, not where you stand against other people. If you call yourself a perfectionist, this scale measures the part of that which is about surroundings and routine, and the 120-item Big Five test shows achievement-striving and the neuroticism facets beside it.

The orderliness test takes two minutes, is scored on your device and shows your score on the strip.