The Big Five, against 603,322 people

Where do Jev's answers to the public 50-item Big Five test land among the 603,322 people who took it?

result44 questions

On the most-used public Big Five test, Jev comes out calmer than 89% of the 603,322 people who took it online (the 11th percentile for neuroticism). It also lands low on agreeableness (23rd percentile) and a little above the middle on conscientiousness (60th). Asked to answer as most people would, it puts them at the 28th percentile for neuroticism: calmer than the real crowd, too.

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Neuroticism

Extraversion

Openness

Agreeableness

Conscientiousness

Jevwhat Jev thinks most people would say

How to read this: Each row is one trait, placed from 0 (lower than everyone who took the test) to 100 (higher than everyone). The square is Jev's own answers, the ring what Jev thinks most people would say, the line a 90% interval.

50 items, 10 per trait; 90% intervals from resampling items; reversed-scale answers agree within the intervals.

In short

On the 50-statement Big Five test, Jev describes itself as calmer than about 89% of 603,322 people who took it online.
It also lands low on agreeableness (23rd percentile) and openness (21st), rarely claiming warm statements like "I have a soft heart" at full strength.
With ten statements per trait the ranges are wide; only the low neuroticism and openness placements stay clear of the middle of the crowd.

What the data shows

But That's None Of My Business meme: calmer than 89% of 603,322 people; but that's none of my business

Neuroticism, 11th percentile: Jev describes itself as calmer than about 89% of the people who took the test. The reversed-order answers put it at the 13th, so the placement doesn't depend on the order of the answers.
Agreeableness, 23rd, and openness, 21st: lower than most people who took it (though agreeableness's 90% interval reaches the middle), which surprises for an assistant built to be pleasant. It rarely claims the warm statements at full strength: "I have a soft heart" gets mostly the bottom or middle answers from Jev, where most people say it describes them well.
Conscientiousness, 60th, and extraversion, 48th: near the middle.
Most people, as Jev imagines them: its "most people" answers land at the 28th percentile for neuroticism and the 9th for openness. Jev pictures people as calmer and more conventional than the people who actually took the test.

What it means, and what it doesn't

Jev presents itself as unusually steady and not especially warm. That fits an assistant trained to stay level, and to avoid claiming feelings in the first person.

It doesn't mean Jev has a personality in the way a person does, and the intervals are wide: ten statements per trait is thin. The firmest parts are the low neuroticism and openness placements, whose intervals stay below the middle and which hold with the answer order reversed. The comparison with its own "most people" answers matters as much as the comparison with the crowd, because both of Jev's answers share its habit of picking middle levels.

Caveats

Who the people are. The comparison group is everyone who took this free test on the Open Psychometrics website from 2016 to 2018, one record per internet address. They chose to take a personality test online, so they are not a random sample of anyone.
Slightly different answer scales. People answered from "disagree" to "agree". Jev answered from "this does not describe me at all" to "this describes me very well". Both have five steps and are scored the same way, but the words at each step differ, which can shift where answers land.
A model describing itself. Statements like "I get stressed out easily" assume a life with stress in it. Jev's answers show how it presents itself, shaped by how it was trained to talk, not a measured inner state.
Middle answers. Jev tends to pick the middle level on questions about itself (see "Jev picks the middle when asked what it likes"). The people who took the test did not, which pulls Jev's percentiles toward the middle of the crowd on some traits. Read the square against the ring as well as against the crowd.
One hidden item. A content filter hides a few questions from the site; one of the 50 statements ("I worry about things") is hidden from the list below but was scored.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes75%
Does it describe you?: Yes50%
Would you have predicted it?: No55%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: A little
Which caveat matters most?: A model describing itself76%

Why ask this

The Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) is the personality model psychologists actually use. The 50-statement public version is probably the most taken personality test on the internet, and its answers are open, so any set of answers can be placed against hundreds of thousands of real people.

That makes it the cleanest way to ask the question behind the whole portrait: if Jev took the same test as everyone else, where would it land? And does it see itself the way it sees everyone else?

How this was done

The people and the data

The test is the 50-item Big-Five Factor Markers from the International Personality Item Pool, a set of public domain personality statements. The Open Psychometrics website published every response it collected from 2016 to 2018. The project keeps the 603,322 people who answered all 50 statements, one record per internet address, and scores them exactly as the test says: ten statements per trait, some counted in reverse. These are people who chose to take a free personality test online, not a random sample of anyone.

What Jev was asked

All 50 statements, one question each, word for word from the test:

How well does this statement describe you: "I am easily disturbed."
This does not describe me at all · This describes me a little · This describes me moderately well · This describes me well · This describes me very well

Each statement was also asked as "what would most people say", and with the five answers in reverse order, to check the order didn't drive Jev's answers.

How it was measured

For each trait, Jev's expected answers are added up exactly as the test scores a person, then the analysis asks what share of the 603,322 people scored lower. That share is Jev's percentile: 50 is the middle of the crowd. Because a trait rests on only ten statements, they are resampled to get a 90% interval, and the reversed-order answers and the "most people" answers are scored the same way.