Updated 3 November 2026
The Big Five in one minute
Ten-Item Personality Inventory, 10 items, 1 minute
The Ten-Item Personality Inventory is the quickest measure of the Big Five that still works: two pairs of adjectives per trait, rated on a seven-point scale, in about a minute. It is for people who want a rough position fast; the fifty-item and 120-item tests are more precise.
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0 of 10 answered. Here are a number of personality traits that may or may not apply to you. Please write a number next to each statement to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with that statement. You should rate the extent to which the pair of traits applies to you, even if one characteristic applies more strongly than the other. I see myself as:
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
Extraversion
High. A high score means you agreed that extraverted and enthusiastic describes you and disagreed that reserved and quiet does. With two items the scale can only place you roughly; the fifty-item test is far more precise and the trait page explains what extraversion covers.
Low. A low score means you agreed that reserved and quiet describes you more than extraverted and enthusiastic. Introversion is the low end of this scale, not a type, and it is not shyness. Take the longer tests for a precise position.
Agreeableness
High. A high score means you agreed that sympathetic and warm describes you and disagreed that critical and quarrelsome does. This is the TIPI's weakest scale (alpha .40), so treat it as a rough pointer.
Low. A low score means you agreed that critical and quarrelsome describes you more than sympathetic and warm. Low agreeableness is scepticism and bluntness, not unkindness. The longer tests measure it with ten or twenty-four items.
Conscientiousness
High. A high score means you agreed that dependable and self-disciplined describes you and disagreed that disorganized and careless does. The longer tests separate orderliness, self-discipline and achievement-striving, which this cannot.
Low. A low score means you agreed that disorganized and careless describes you more than dependable and self-disciplined. It says nothing about talent or how hard you work when something interests you.
Emotional stability
High. A high score means you agreed that calm and emotionally stable describes you and disagreed that anxious and easily upset does. The trait is the other side of neuroticism, which the 120-item test scores with six facets.
Low. A low score means you agreed that anxious and easily upset describes you more than calm and emotionally stable. It describes how readily feelings arise, measured across a whole population; it is not a diagnosis.
More about emotional stability
Openness to experiences
High. A high score means you agreed that open to new experiences and complex describes you and disagreed that conventional and uncreative does. Openness is appetite for ideas, art and novelty, not intelligence.
Low. A low score means you agreed that conventional and uncreative describes you more than open to new experiences and complex. Practical, settled people solve problems every day; the scale measures appetite for the new, not ability.
How reliable is this test
Internal consistency (coefficient alpha) per scale, as published:
| Scale | Published |
|---|---|
| Extraversion | 0.68 |
| Agreeableness | 0.40 |
| Conscientiousness | 0.50 |
| Emotional stability | 0.73 |
| Openness to experiences | 0.45 |
Coefficient alpha per scale from Gosling, Rentfrow and Swann (2003), Table 1 (N = 1,813). The same table gives six-week test-retest reliabilities of .77, .71, .76, .70 and .62. Two-item scales are expected to have low alpha; the authors recommend judging the TIPI by its test-retest reliability and its correlations with longer Big Five measures.
No published norms exist for this instrument, so the results show raw scores against the possible range and no percentiles.
Gosling, Rentfrow and Swann (2003) report six-week test-retest reliabilities of .77 (extraversion), .71 (agreeableness), .76 (conscientiousness), .70 (emotional stability) and .62 (openness), and alphas of .68, .40, .50, .73 and .45. Two-item scales are expected to have low alpha; the authors recommend judging the TIPI by its test-retest reliability and its convergence with longer measures, and using it only where a longer measure is not practical.
Limits worth knowing: two items per trait makes each scale coarse, and the published alphas are low, as the authors expected; judge it by its test-retest figures and take the longer tests when the result matters. No percentile norm table is published, so the marker is drawn against the one-to-seven range.
Questions people ask
How accurate is a ten-item personality test?
Rough but real. Each trait is measured by two pairs of adjectives, so the scale is coarse and its internal consistency is low, as the authors expected. Its test-retest reliability over six weeks is .62 to .77 and it correlates well with longer Big Five measures. Use it for a quick position and the longer tests when the result matters.
Why is the scale one to seven?
Each trait score is the average of its two items, each rated from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly), with one item reverse scored. The authors publish means and standard deviations by sex but no percentile table, so the site draws your score against the one-to-seven range and does not invent percentiles.
Which test should I take instead?
The fifty-item test if you have five minutes and want percentiles; the 120-item test if you have twelve minutes and want the thirty facets.
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: Ten-Item Personality Inventory. Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504-528. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1
Scoring key: https://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/scales-weve-developed/ten-item-personality-measure-tipi/, items from https://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tipi.pdf, checked 2026-11-03.
Licence: Free for any use. The author states on the TIPI page that anyone can use it for any purpose and need not ask permission. https://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/scales-weve-developed/ten-item-personality-measure-tipi/ Credit: Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), Gosling, Rentfrow and Swann (2003).