The Big Five Aspects Scale (My Personality Test Results)

I’ve taken the Big Five Aspects Scale per­son­al­ity test.

I enjoy explor­ing per­son­al­ity tests; it’s a guilty pleas­ure of mine.

For instance, accord­ing to 16Personalities, I’m an INTP‑A “Assertive Logician” (see descrip­tion here).

Below are my res­ults (some­what shortened down) from the Big Five Aspects Scale per­son­al­ity test at Understand Myself as recom­men­ded by Jordan B. Peterson, clin­ic­al psy­cho­lo­gist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. 

Below, you’ll find my per­son­al­ity test scores along with my comments.

Here we go:

Results: Big Five Aspects Scale

The ques­tion­naire explores how I com­pare to thou­sands of oth­er people (who have taken the same test) in terms of:

Agreeableness: Typical (50÷100)—Compassion: Average (48÷100) and Politeness: Average (52÷100)

Conscientiousness: Moderately low (35÷100)—Industriousness: Moderately low (38÷100) and Orderliness: Moderately low (36÷100)

Extraversion: Average (43÷100)—Enthusiasm: Very low (6÷100) and Assertiveness: High (88÷100)

Neuroticism: Low (14÷100)—Withdrawal: Average (41÷100) and Volatility: Very low (4÷100)

Openness to Experience: Exceptionally high (96÷100)—Openness: Very high (92÷100) and Intellect: Very high (95÷100)

For those inter­ested in these types of assess­ments, here are my res­ults, fol­lowed by my comments.

1. Agreeableness: Typical

50^th per­cent­ile (more agree­able than 50 of 100 people)

“People with aver­age levels of agree­able­ness are some­what for­giv­ing, accept­ing, flex­ible, gentle and patient. They some­times feel pity for those who are excluded, pun­ished or defeated. However, they are less likely than highly agree­able people to be taken advant­age of by dis­agree­able people or those with crim­in­al or pred­at­ory intent. They can be skep­tic­al. They believe in coöper­a­tion, but also feel that com­pet­i­tion, with its losers and win­ners, has its val­id place. They are less likely to lose argu­ments (and will not typ­ic­ally avoid dis­cus­sion) with less agree­able people. They can be quite good at bar­gain­ing for them­selves, and at nego­ti­at­ing for more recog­ni­tion or power. They are likely to have some­what high­er salar­ies and earn more money, in con­sequence. This may mean they are less likely to suf­fer from resent­ment or to har­bour invis­ible anger, although this tend­ency may be increased, if they are high in neur­oticism. In addi­tion, because of their tend­ency to engage in con­flict, when neces­sary, typ­ic­ally agree­able people are less prone to sac­ri­fice medi­um- to long-term sta­bil­ity and func­tion for the sake of short-term peace. This can mean that prob­lems that should be solved in the present are often solved, and do not accu­mu­late coun­ter­pro­duct­ively across time.”

My com­ment: I find the skill of listen­ing to oth­ers to be under­val­ued in Western cul­ture, and I always strive to become a bet­ter listen­er. Still, I draw the line of per­son­al agree­able­ness in situ­ations where my integ­rity is at stake. To think I’m close to the aver­age in this aspect makes abso­lute sense.

1A. Compassion: Typical or Average

48^th per­cent­ile (more com­pas­sion­ate than 48 of 100 people)

“People who are typ­ic­ally com­pas­sion­ate people are reas­on­ably inter­ested in the prob­lems of oth­er people, and oth­er liv­ing things. They are some­what con­cerned about help­ing oth­er people avoid neg­at­ive emo­tion, but are will­ing to stand their ground, even when oth­ers get upset. They make time and do kind things for oth­ers, but bal­ance that with ful­filling their own needs and interests. They have a soft side, but are not pushovers. Other people con­sider them reas­on­ably sym­path­et­ic and nice, and will some­times turn to them for a listen­ing ear. They can be empath­et­ic and caring. However, they are not primar­ily oth­er-ori­ented, so they can nego­ti­ate effect­ively on their own behalf. This helps ensure that they get what they deserve, and shields them from the devel­op­ment of resentment.”

My com­ment: I’m not a social justice war­ri­or by any stretch of the ima­gin­a­tion, but I have com­pas­sion for the inno­cent. Having trav­elled across social classes, I know bet­ter than to think that liv­ing is easy.

1B. Politeness: Typical or Average

52^nd per­cent­ile (more polite than 52 of 100 people)

“Typically polite people can be defer­en­tial to author­ity, but can also be chal­len­ging, when neces­sary. They are not par­tic­u­larly obed­i­ent. They can be respect­ful, but will also push back if pushed. They are not made uncom­fort­able by the neces­sity of stand­ing up to oth­er people. Typically polite people will avoid con­flict, reas­on­ably, but are not com­pletely averse to confrontation.”

My com­ment: I thought I would rank high­er on polite­ness, but being aver­age is still reasonable.

2. Conscientiousness: Moderately Low

35^th per­cent­ile (less con­scien­tious than 64 of 100 people)

“People mod­er­ately low in con­scien­tious­ness tend to be rel­at­ively free of guilt, shame, self-dis­gust and self-con­tempt. Individuals who are mod­er­ately low in con­scien­tious are not par­tic­u­larly con­cerned by fail­ure. They are not judg­ment­al, to them­selves or oth­ers, and tend towards situ­ation­al explan­a­tions for dis­ap­point­ment, frus­tra­tion or lack of suc­cess. They can handle peri­ods of inactiv­ity and unem­ploy­ment with rel­at­ive ease. They tend to down­play the rela­tion­ship between hard work, dili­gence and suc­cess, believ­ing that chance factors and luck in life play a determ­in­ing role. They live, in large part, for leis­ure and very much look for­ward to time off. They can be good at relax­ing, and liv­ing in the moment (par­tic­u­larly when low in neur­oticism). They are less con­cerned than aver­age with clean­ing, mor­al pur­ity and achieve­ment. It’s more fun to be at the beach or at a party with a per­son mod­er­ately low in con­scien­tious­ness – but you might not want to invite them over on mov­ing day.”

My com­ment: I grav­it­ated towards a freel­ance career for a reas­on: I dis­like hav­ing duties as much as I like to decide what to do and what not to do. Still, I should work on this aspect of my personality.

2A. Industriousness: Moderately Low

38^th per­cent­ile (less indus­tri­ous than 61 of 100 people)

“People mod­er­ately low in indus­tri­ous­ness are not judg­ment­al to them­selves or oth­ers. They tend to let people, includ­ing them­selves, off the hook. They are less likely to believe that people fail because they don’t apply them­selves or work hard, assum­ing that chance and luck play the determ­in­ing roles. They are not prone to guilt, self-dis­gust or self-con­tempt, and have a lais­sez-faire, whatever-will-be-will-be atti­tude toward life.”

My com­ment: I have a prob­lem with pro­cras­tin­a­tion and I’m doing my best work when there’s a dead­line. This per­son­al­ity trait is some­thing I’ve been try­ing to improve for more than two decades.

2B. Orderliness: Moderately Low

36^th per­cent­ile (less orderly than 63 of 100 people)

People mod­er­ately low in order­li­ness are neither dis­turbed nor dis­gus­ted by mess and chaos. They tend simply not to notice such things. They see the world in shades of grey, rather than black and white, and are non-judg­ment­al in their atti­tudes toward them­selves and oth­ers. They are not ori­ented toward detail and take neither rules nor pro­ced­ures too ser­i­ously. People who are mod­er­ately low in order­li­ness care less than aver­age for routine and pre­dict­ab­il­ity. Their sched­ules are loose and dis­rup­tion doesn’t both­er them. They require almost con­stant remind­er and super­vi­sion to main­tain atten­tion and focus, and are eas­ily dis­trac­ted. They can, how­ever, tol­er­ate the mess, dis­rup­tion and inter­ven­ing peri­ods of chaos that may accom­pany cre­at­ive endeavour.”

My com­ment: I agree with this assess­ment. However, I’m not sure that this is some­thing that I’m inter­ested in adjust­ing. First, you change the big pic­ture and then sort out the details. I keep my home sys­tem­at­ic­ally ordered, but I’m not par­tic­u­larly con­cerned with the chaos of hav­ing kids. I find this bal­ance to be work­ing well.

3. Extraversion: Typical or Average

43^rd per­cent­ile (more extra­ver­ted than 43 of 100 people)

“People with aver­age levels of extra­ver­sion are not overly enthu­si­ast­ic, talk­at­ive, assert­ive in social situ­ations, or gregari­ous. They enjoy social con­tact, but are also happy spend­ing time alone. They will plan parties occa­sion­ally, and make people laugh, but are often will­ing to let oth­ers take the lead in organ­iz­ing social situ­ations and enter­tain­ing. They have a bal­anced view of the past and the future, neither over-emphas­iz­ing nor dis­miss­ing the pos­it­ive. People with aver­age levels of extra­ver­sion strike a good bal­ance between pri­vacy and self-dis­clos­ure. They can keep quiet, when neces­sary, and are unlikely to blurt out inform­a­tion that might be bet­ter kept to them­selves. They will express their view­point in meet­ings, but are typ­ic­ally not the first to do so. At times, they can be cap­tiv­at­ing and con­vin­cing, but are not so on a habitu­al basis. People with aver­age levels of extra­ver­sion can fit well into a range of jobs. They are soci­able enough to engage in jobs involving sales, per­sua­sion, work in groups and pub­lic speak­ing (par­tic­u­larly if they are low in neur­oticism), although they may some­times find the con­tinu­al pub­lic expos­ure fatiguing.”

My com­ment: I was pretty sur­prised by rank­ing in on aver­age here. I’ve always thought of myself as quite the extreme intro­vert. I express myself in meet­ings or on stage, but these aren’t neces­sar­ily extro­vert beha­viours. I might explain this assess­ment below; I rank very low for the first aspect of this trait while high for the second.

3A. Enthusiasm: Very Low

6^th per­cent­ile (less enthu­si­ast­ic than 93 of 100 people)

“Individuals who are very low in enthu­si­asm are quiet and un-excit­able. They can be very hard to get to know, as they are not at all chatty or bub­bly. When they do talk – and they do so com­par­at­ively rarely – it tends to be about things in which they find excep­tion­al interest. They laugh very much less fre­quently than oth­ers. They typ­ic­ally prefer solitude and find it dif­fi­cult to enjoy them­selves around oth­er people. At most, they can handle social con­tact in small doses. They are private people, on the loner side of the dis­tri­bu­tion, and tend not to be pos­it­ive or optim­ist­ic. They very rarely seek out stim­u­la­tion, excite­ment, activ­ity or fun (and, if they do so, much prefer quieter activ­it­ies). People very low in enthu­si­asm are sol­it­ary, find­ing it uncom­monly dif­fi­cult to gen­er­ate a felt sense of excite­ment when offered the oppor­tun­ity to engage in some­thing that oth­ers might find enga­ging or entertaining.”

My notes: My best guess is that I’m gen­er­ally unim­pressed by most things. And, I love being alone (or even isol­ated for long peri­ods). However, people around me are more likely to describe me as “overly ser­i­ous” rather than “some­what grumpy”. I should make a point of being more excited about the more mundane aspects of life.

3B. Assertiveness: High

88^th per­cent­ile (more assert­ive than 88 of 100 people)

“Highly assert­ive people are “take charge” types. They put their own opin­ions for­ward strongly, and tend to dom­in­ate and con­trol social situ­ations. Assertive people can be influ­en­tial and cap­tiv­at­ing. They have the com­mu­nic­a­tion style that is often asso­ci­ated with lead­er­ship. This is good when they are know­ledge­able, com­pet­ent and able, but not so good when they aren’t. Assertive people are people of action. They don’t gen­er­ally wait for oth­ers to lead the way. They can be more impuls­ive than aver­age, and can act without thinking.”

My com­ment: I con­fess to hav­ing a some­what gran­di­ose sense of what spe­cif­ic road I want to travel at any giv­en moment. And roads less trav­elled don’t scare me — even when they should. This par­tic­u­lar brand of impuls­ive­ness and stub­born­ness has got­ten me into trouble more than once. I need to work on this trait.

4. Neuroticism: Low

14^th per­cent­ile (lower in neur­oticism than 85 of 100 people)

“When good things hap­pen to them, people with low levels of neur­oticism can accept it, without ques­tion­ing wheth­er or not they deserved it. They are usu­ally sat­is­fied with their rela­tion­ships and careers. Overall, they are tol­er­ant of stress, and can accept fail­ure and set­backs as part of life. People with low levels of neur­oticism can handle risk sub­stant­ively bet­ter, without becom­ing unduly con­cerned. They are rarely con­cerned with secur­ity, and can more eas­ily handle recre­ation­al, career, fin­an­cial and social situ­ations where the pos­sib­il­ity of loss is high­er. They find con­sid­er­ing as well as imple­ment­ing career changes and oth­er trans­form­a­tions that could enhance their lives much less stressful.”

My com­ment: I can see how this gets me into trouble every now and then. Combined with high assert­ive­ness, might not be as wor­ried about events or decisions worthy of legit­im­ate con­cern. I over­es­tim­ate what I can do in a day and under­es­tim­ate what I can do in a decade.

4A. Withdrawal: Typical or Average

41^st per­cent­ile (high­er in with­draw­al than 41 of 100 people)

“People with aver­age levels of with­draw­al some­times feel sad, lone­some, dis­ap­poin­ted and grief-stricken, but not too deeply, and not for too long. They exper­i­ence nor­mal levels of doubt and worry, embar­rass­ment, self-con­scious­ness and dis­cour­age­ment in the face of threat and pun­ish­ment. They are reas­on­ably but not excess­ively sens­it­ive to social rejec­tion, and don’t feel hurt too eas­ily. Even when hurt, frightened, or anxious, they can recov­er in a reas­on­able amount of time. People with typ­ic­al levels of with­draw­al are not par­tic­u­larly con­cerned that some­thing bad is going to happen.”

My com­ment: I think that I’m aver­age when it comes to feel­ing blue. I worry, but not too much. My ego can get bruised in inter­ac­tions with oth­ers, but I recov­er quickly.

4B. Volatility: Very Low

4^th per­cent­ile (less volat­ile than 95 of 100 people)

“Individuals very low in volat­il­ity are highly stable and pre­dict­able in their moods. They are almost nev­er irrit­able, and feel very little dis­ap­point­ment, frus­tra­tion, pain and loneli­ness. People find them easy to be with and can very fre­quently relax around them. They almost nev­er express their frus­tra­tion, dis­ap­point­ment and irrit­ab­il­ity and appear very reas­on­able when they do so. Even on those infre­quent occa­sions where they become stirred up, upset, angry or irrit­ated, they calm down very quickly. They are not at all argu­ment­at­ive and very rarely loose their composure.”

My com­ment: Agreed. You’re not very likely to break my com­pos­ure — not even if you resort to phys­ic­al viol­ence. I do exper­i­ence emo­tions intensely, but I’m at the same time in com­plete con­trol of wheth­er or not I will choose to put my inner life on dis­play or not.

5. Openness to Experience: Exceptionally High

96^th per­cent­ile (high­er in open­ness to exper­i­ence than 96 of 100 people)

“People with excep­tion­ally high levels of open­ness to exper­i­ence are almost always char­ac­ter­ized by oth­ers as extremely smart, cre­at­ive, explor­at­ory, intel­li­gent and vis­ion­ary. They are extremely inter­ested in learn­ing, and are con­stantly acquir­ing new abil­it­ies and skills. They are extremely curi­ous and explor­at­ory. They are excep­tion­ally inter­ested in abstract think­ing, philo­sophy, and the mean­ing of belief sys­tems and ideo­lo­gies. They are very likely to enjoy writ­ing (or even to be driv­en to write). They enjoy com­plex, abstract ideas and deeply love to con­front and solve com­plex, abstract and multi-dimen­sion­al prob­lems. They are almost always pro­lif­ic read­ers, and are inter­ested in a vast range of top­ics. They have an excep­tion­ally broad and deep vocab­u­lary. They can think and learn remark­ably quickly. They are unusu­ally pro­fi­cient at for­mu­lat­ing new ideas, and can be excep­tion­ally artic­u­late (par­tic­u­larly if aver­age or above in extra­ver­sion). People excep­tion­ally high in open­ness can see old things in remark­able ways. They can for­mu­late any single prob­lem in an excep­tion­ally diverse range of ways, and can gen­er­ate a tre­mend­ously large num­ber of prob­lem-solv­ing solu­tions. They will con­stantly seek change, often to make things bet­ter, but also just for the sake of change.”

My notes: Change is fun, check. Writing, check. Philosophy, check. Always learn­ing and explor­ing, check. And yes, I’m proud of accept­ing myself as a cre­at­ive individual.

5A. Intellect: Very High

92^nd per­cent­ile (high­er in open­ness than 95 of 100 people)

“People very high in intel­lect are not­ably inter­ested in ideas and abstract con­cepts. They crave expos­ure to nov­el inform­a­tion, even when it is com­plex. They are highly curi­ous and explor­at­ory, and act­ively want to find, tackle and solve chal­len­ging prob­lems. They will much more fre­quently seek out and ini­ti­ate issue-ori­ented dis­cus­sions, and are very likely to read, think about and want to dis­cuss idea-centered books (gen­er­ally non-fic­tion). They are markedly artic­u­late, and can for­mu­late ideas clearly and quickly (par­tic­u­larly if aver­age or high­er in extra­ver­sion). They have a broad and wide vocab­u­lary, and con­tinu­ally want to learn new things. People very high in intel­lect will con­stantly find and gen­er­ate nov­el, cre­at­ive con­cepts and vol­un­tar­ily search for and adapt very well to new exper­i­ence and situations.”

My com­ment: This is not a spe­cif­ic IQ test but an assess­ment of interest in abstract ideas and com­plex prob­lem-solv­ing. Given that brands hire me to help with ever-chan­ging com­plex­it­ies, it cer­tainly helps that I’m highly inter­ested in (and strongly attrac­ted to) com­plex chal­lenges and problems.

5B. Openness: Very High

95^th per­cent­ile (high­er in open­ness than 95 of 100 people)

“The closest syn­onym for open­ness (rather than open­ness to exper­i­ence, which encom­passes open­ness and intel­lect) is cre­ativ­ity. Very open, cre­at­ive people love beauty. They require an out­let for their cre­at­ive abil­ity, or they can­not thrive. They need to be sur­roun­ded by art or beau­ti­ful crafts. They are strik­ingly sens­it­ive to col­or and archi­tec­tur­al form. They very much like to col­lect things, now and then to the point of obses­sion. They are very ima­gin­at­ive, and love to day­dream and reflect on things. They are uncom­monly affected by music, often of many genres, and may be music­al or artist­ic them­selves (both of these are rare in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion). They can get unusu­ally immersed in a book, or a movie, or in their own thoughts, and become obli­vi­ous to the out­side world. They respond very strongly to beauty, cre­ativ­ity and art.”

My com­ment: I make a point of appre­ci­at­ing beauty in my daily life. All forms of beauty serve as vis­cer­al remind­ers that life’s not just some sort of Darwinian, util­it­ari­an, or Taylorism out­put sys­tem. If math is the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of the uni­verse, beauty is its prime expression.

What actions did I take as a res­ult of tak­ing this test? Make sure to check out I Took a Personality Test Failed Miserably.

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