Friendliness
A facet of extraversion. Four items in the IPIP-NEO-120.
The first facet of extraversion is warmth and ease with other people: making friends easily, feeling comfortable around people, and letting them close rather than keeping them at a distance. It is the facet of extraversion that overlaps most with agreeableness, and the one people usually mean when they call someone friendly.
What it does not mean
A low score is not dislike of people, and it is not rudeness. Low scorers are often loyal to a few and courteous to everyone; they do not move towards strangers, and they take longer to let anyone in.
A high score is not a measure of how much people like you. Warmth is a disposition the person reports, not a verdict from their friends.
Four items make a short scale. A facet score moves more between attempts than the 24-item domain score, and it describes a tendency in ordinary life as the person reports it, not a diagnosis of anything.
High and low in daily life
High. People high on this facet say they make friends easily and feel comfortable around people. In daily life that shows as first-name terms within minutes, a wide circle of friends from every stage of life, and warmth towards people they have only just met. Others experience them as easy to be with.
Low. People low on this facet say they avoid contacts with others and keep people at a distance. In daily life that shows as a small circle of long-standing friends, reserve with new people, and a preference for being approached rather than approaching. Warmth, when it comes, is slow and lasting.
Parent domain
- Extraversion: the broad trait this facet belongs to, with five sibling facets.
What the research says it predicts
Friendliness, gregariousness and cheerfulness form the enthusiasm aspect of extraversion, which is about sociability and positive feeling, as distinct from the assertiveness aspect about taking charge. (DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson, 2007)
Across 39 nations the core of extraversion was found to be sensitivity to reward and the pleasant feelings that come with it, with sociability following from that rather than defining it. (Lucas and others, 2000)
Extraversion facets relate to higher life satisfaction and happiness, with warmth among the stronger facets after cheerfulness. (Anglim and others, 2020)
Where people fall
The spread of scores
Curve height shows how common each score is; the darker middle holds half of all people. If you have taken a test on this device, your marker is drawn on.
IPIP-NEO-120, friendliness, 4 items
410,376 people
The other facets of extraversion
Sources and licence
DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 880-896. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.5.880
Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., Grob, A., Suh, E. M., & Shao, L. (2000). Cross-cultural evidence for the fundamental features of extraversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(3), 452-468. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.3.452
Anglim, J., Horwood, S., Smillie, L. D., Marrero, R. J., & Wood, J. K. (2020). Predicting psychological and subjective well-being from personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 146(4), 279-323. doi:10.1037/bul0000226
Instrument: IPIP-NEO-120. Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the Five Factor Model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78-89. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003 Key: https://ipip.ori.org/30FacetNEO-PI-RItems.htm.
Norms: Johnson, J. A. IPIP-NEO-120 public dataset (IPIP120.dat), OSF component wxvth of osf.io/tbmh5, https://osf.io/wxvth/.
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
Instrument: IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers. Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26-42. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.4.1.26 Key: https://ipip.ori.org/newBigFive5broadKey.htm.
Norms: Open-Source Psychometrics Project, IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers responses (IPIP-FFM-data-8Nov2018.zip), 1,015,342 responses collected 2016 to 2018, https://openpsychometrics.org/_rawdata/.
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