Updated 3 November 2026
How patient am I?
IPIP patience scale, 10 items, 2 minutes
Patience, as measured here, is how much it takes to make you angry or irritated, and how rarely you lose your temper. These ten statements are the public-domain IPIP scale for the patience facet of the HEXACO model's agreeableness.
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0 of 10 answered. Describe yourself as you generally are now, not as you wish to be in the future. Describe yourself as you honestly see yourself, in relation to other people you know of the same sex as you are, and roughly your same age.
Your results
Your answers and results are stored only in this browser, on this device. Nothing is sent to us. A share link carries your scores in the link itself.
Understanding your scores
Patience
High. People who score high say it takes a lot to make them angry, they rarely feel angry with people, rarely get irritated and seldom get mad. In daily life that shows as calm in queues and traffic, tolerance of other people's mistakes, and arguments that do not escalate. It is the slow-to-anger sense of patience, measured as a facet of agreeableness in the HEXACO model; it says nothing about how well you wait for results.
Low. People who score low say they are easily annoyed, get angry and irritated easily, lose their temper and get upset easily. In daily life that shows as quick flashes of frustration, sharp words that are regretted later, and a low threshold for other people's slowness. It is not the same as being unkind, and many quick-tempered people are also quick to make up; the scale measures how readily anger arises, not what is done with it.
How reliable is this test
Internal consistency (coefficient alpha) per scale, as published:
| Scale | Published |
|---|---|
| Patience | 0.88 |
Coefficient alpha as given on the key page, https://ipip.ori.org/newHEXACO_PI_key.htm, accessed 3 November 2026.
No published norms exist for this instrument, so the results show raw scores against the possible range and no percentiles.
The IPIP key page gives coefficient alpha of .88 for this scale and no test-retest figure. Personality scores are fairly stable over weeks; a change of a few points between attempts is usual.
Limits worth knowing: this scale measures the slow-to-anger sense of patience, not how well you wait or persist; ten items, self-reported, with no published norm sample for the scale on its own.
Guides that cover this
Questions people ask
Is this patience as in waiting, or as in temper?
Temper. The scale measures how much it takes to make you angry or irritated. Patience in the sense of persisting and waiting for results is closer to perseverance, which has its own test.
Why is patience listed under agreeableness?
In the HEXACO model of personality, patience is one of the four facets of agreeableness, alongside forgiveness, gentleness and flexibility. The item pool here is the public-domain IPIP version of that facet.
Why is there no percentile on this test?
No norm sample has been published for this scale on its own, and the site never estimates or invents norms. Your marker is drawn against the possible range instead, and the page says so. The Big Five tests do have published norms.
Is a high or low score better?
Neither. Each end has strengths and costs, and the research describes tendencies across large groups, not what any one person will do. The site never colours scores as good or bad.
Where do my answers go?
Nowhere. The test is scored in your browser and the result is kept only on this device. If you choose to share a link, your scores are inside the link itself and nothing is sent to this site.
Sources and licence
Instrument: Patience. IPIP scales measuring constructs similar to those in the HEXACO Personality Inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2004), International Personality Item Pool.
Scoring key: https://ipip.ori.org/newHEXACO_PI_key.htm, checked 2026-11-03.
Licence: Public domain (IPIP). Permission is granted automatically for any person to use IPIP items for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial. https://ipip.ori.org/newPermission.htm Credit: International Personality Item Pool, https://ipip.ori.org/.