How it works
Fifty statements, five scales, one light print.
Updated 5 November 2026
What it is based on
Personality Meter uses the Big Five, the most widely used description of personality in research. It describes people along five broad scales. Each scale runs between two ends, and neither end is better than the other.
The fifty statements are the IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers by Lewis R. Goldberg (1992), from the International Personality Item Pool, a public-domain collection used in many studies. Ten statements belong to each scale; about half of them are worded in the opposite direction, so that agreeing with everything doesn't push a scale one way.
The five scales
- Openness · practical ↔ curious. How much you are drawn to new ideas, images and experiences.
- Conscientiousness · spontaneous ↔ organised. How you like to plan, keep order and see things through.
- Extraversion · reserved ↔ outgoing. Where your energy comes from: people and action, or quiet and depth.
- Agreeableness · direct ↔ warm. How you balance your own view with keeping things good between people.
- Emotional steadiness · sensitive ↔ steady. How strongly worries and moods move you, and how quickly they settle. Research usually calls the other direction of this scale "neuroticism"; we describe it from the steady side and treat both ends with respect.
How the position is calculated
You answer each statement on five steps, from "not like me at all" (1) to "very much like me" (5). Statements worded in the opposite direction are turned around (1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 4). For each scale we take the average of its ten answers and place it between 0 and 100:
position = (average − 1) ÷ 4 × 100
An average of 3 gives 50, the middle of the scale. Below 40 the overview says you lean towards the first end, above 60 towards the second end, and in between that you sit between the two.
No comparison with other people. The number shows where your own answers sit on the scale, not how you rank against a population. We don't have norms for this version, and we don't pretend to.
The light print
Your light print is a picture of your five positions: each light reaches as far as its number. The fine strands are generated from your answers, so every print looks a little different. It is a picture, not an extra measurement: its shape adds nothing to the five numbers.
What the result can tell you, and what it can't
- It describes how you answered today. Mood, tiredness and the situation you have in mind all colour self-descriptions.
- Traits are fairly stable, but they shift over the years, and studies suggest people can change a little on purpose with small, regular steps (Roberts et al. 2017; Hudson & Fraley 2015; Stieger et al. 2021).
- It is not a diagnosis or a psychological assessment, and it is not suitable for selecting, hiring or judging anyone.
- The English statements come from IPIP. The Czech wording is our own careful, gender-neutral translation and has not been validated on its own.
The optional personality book (PRO)
The free overview shows all five positions with a short line each. The optional personality book goes further: each light in depth (strengths, what may cost energy, work, people, pressure), how pairs of lights combine, a short user manual, and a four-week experiment with one light, built on research on deliberate trait change and if–then plans (Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006). It is written on your device from the same answers and uses the same calculation. It costs US$3.49 for 12 months; the free overview is yours either way.
All sources are listed on the sources page.