Low mood

A high score is not a diagnosis, and the scale does not test for any condition. It records how often a person says they feel low and how they feel about themselves, compared with a large sample of other people. It is a tendency, not a state, and a score is a comparison, not a verdict.

A low score is not cheerfulness, which is a facet of extraversion. Low scorers are comfortable with themselves and rarely feel blue; how much joy they feel is a separate question.

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. People high on this facet say they often feel blue, are often down in the dumps and are not comfortable with themselves. In daily life that shows as a harsh inner critic, a tendency to read setbacks as evidence about oneself, and moods that take time to lift. Many high scorers are also the most reflective and self-aware people in a room.

Low. People low on this facet say they feel comfortable with themselves and rarely feel blue. In daily life that shows as taking criticism as information rather than as a verdict, bouncing back from a bad week, and a settled sense of being all right as they are.

• Neuroticism: the broad trait this facet belongs to, with five sibling facets.

Of all thirty facets, this one is the strongest single correlate of lower life satisfaction and happiness, and cheerfulness, its counterpart in extraversion, the strongest correlate of higher. (Anglim and others, 2020)

Self-esteem and this side of neuroticism are so closely related that one large study treats them, with self-efficacy and locus of control, as indicators of a single core self-evaluation. (Judge, Erez, Bono and Thoresen, 2002)

Neuroticism falls on average through adulthood, with most of the change before middle age. (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006)

• Worry
• Anger
• Self-consciousness
• Immoderation
• Vulnerability