Glossary
Personality terms, without the jargon
The vocabulary you'll meet in the tests and results — trait, facet, self-report, reliability, percentile — in plain language, so you can read your result with a critical eye.
- Trait
- A stable tendency to feel, think and act a certain way, relatively constant across time and situations — as opposed to a passing state. See in Big Five →
- State
- A momentary psychological condition (feeling anxious today) that varies with context. Unlike a trait, which is the lasting tendency.
- Facet
- A more specific subcomponent of a broad trait. E.g., within Extraversion, facets like assertiveness and excitement-seeking.
- Construct
- An abstract concept a test tries to measure (extraversion, self-esteem). Not directly observable — inferred from answers.
- Self-report
- A method where the person answers about themselves. Practical and informative, but subject to limited self-perception and biases. See the methodology →
- Likert scale
- A graded response format (from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree") that measures intensity instead of yes/no.
- Item
- Each statement or question in a test. Several items summed estimate a construct more stably than any single one.
- Test-retest reliability
- How similar a test's results are when the same person retakes it at different times. Low reliability means the label can change without the person having changed.
- Validity
- How well a test actually measures what it claims to — and predicts what it should.
- Percentile
- Your standing relative to a reference group. The 70th percentile means scoring above 70% of that sample — not "70% of a trait".
- Normative sample
- The reference group your result is compared against. Whether a score reads high or low depends on who that sample is.
- Social desirability bias
- The tendency to answer in a socially acceptable rather than fully honest way — one of the main distortions in self-report.
- Type vs. dimension
- A type sorts you into closed categories (you're A or B); a dimension measures intensity on a continuum. Most traits are dimensional, not categorical. See in 16 types →
- Big Five
- The most established model in personality psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. Take the test →
- Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
- Intrinsic: acting for the interest or enjoyment of the activity itself. Extrinsic: acting for a reward or outside pressure. Core to Self-Determination Theory. See in Drivers →
- RIASEC
- Holland's model of career interests in six areas: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. See in RIASEC →
- Self-knowledge
- The process of observing and understanding your own patterns of thought, emotion and behavior — the purpose of every test on this site.