Worry
A facet of neuroticism, published as Anxiety. Four items in the IPIP-NEO-120.
The first facet of neuroticism is how readily worry and apprehension arise: whether a person tends to fear the worst, to feel stressed by ordinary pressures and to carry a list of things that might go wrong. It is a tendency everyone has in some degree, and most people sit in the middle of the range.
What it does not mean
A high score is not a diagnosis, and the scale does not test for any condition. It records how often a person says they worry and feel under stress, compared with a large sample of other people, and nothing more. Many high scorers are careful planners whose worry does useful work.
A low score is not courage, and it is not indifference. People low on this facet feel fear when there is something to fear; it simply does not arrive early or stay long.
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 worry about things, fear for the worst, are afraid of many things and get stressed out easily. In daily life that shows as rehearsing what might go wrong, checking and re-checking, finding deadlines and uncertainty draining, and a mind that is hard to switch off at night.
Low. People low on this facet say they seldom worry, do not expect the worst and take pressure in their stride. In daily life that shows as calm before an exam or an interview, little need for reassurance, and a habit of dealing with problems when they arrive rather than in advance. Others sometimes read this as not taking things seriously enough.
Parent domain
- Neuroticism: the broad trait this facet belongs to, with five sibling facets.
What the research says it predicts
In a meta-analysis of personality and well-being, every neuroticism facet related to lower life satisfaction and happiness, with this facet among the stronger of the six. (Anglim and others, 2020)
This facet groups with self-consciousness, vulnerability and the low-mood facet into the aspect of neuroticism called withdrawal, as distinct from the anger and immoderation side called volatility. (DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson, 2007)
On average people become more emotionally stable from their twenties onward, so a high score at twenty is likely to be a lower one at fifty. (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006)
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, worry, 4 items
410,376 people
The other facets of neuroticism
Sources and licence
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
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
Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 1-25. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1
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