16 Personality Types Test

What This Test Measures

The test sorts your answers onto four dimensions. Each one describes a preference, the way being left- or right-handed describes a preference. You can use both sides, but one usually feels more natural.

Your result is the letter you lean toward on each dimension, giving one of 16 combinations such as INFP or ESTJ.

How The Test Works And How It Is Scored

You rate 48 statements on a five-point scale from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. Each dimension has 12 statements, and half of them point to each side, so agreeing with everything does not push you one way.

Here is a real item from the test:

Each answer scores from minus two to plus two. We add the scores for each dimension and convert the total to a percentage. A result of 50% means a perfect balance; 100% means every answer pointed the same way. The letter you get is the side above 50%.

For what each letter means and how many answer changes it takes to flip a letter at each level, see what the MBTI letters mean and how strong your lean is.

The questions, scoring and type descriptions on this page were written by PrismaTest. They are not taken from any commercial assessment.

The Model Behind It

The idea of psychological types comes from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who described introverted and extraverted attitudes and four mental functions in Psychological Types (1921). In the 1940s, Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers turned Jung’s ideas into a questionnaire, adding the Judging and Perceiving dimension. That questionnaire became the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a registered trademark of The Myers-Briggs Company. PrismaTest is not affiliated with it, and this is not the official MBTI.

What The Research Says

Type tests are popular because the results feel personal and are easy to talk about. Researchers raise two fair criticisms that you should know before you read your result:

• People are not split into two neat boxes. Scores on each dimension form a bell curve, with most people near the middle. That is why we show your percentage and not only the letter. We look at what the studies found in do personality types exist?
• Results can change on a retest. If you sit near 50% on a dimension, a different mood can flip the letter. Retest studies of type questionnaires find this happens often for borderline scores.

Academic psychology mostly uses the Big Five model instead, which measures traits on a continuous scale. Four of the type dimensions line up well with four of the Big Five traits: Extraversion with Extraversion, Intuition with Openness, Feeling with Agreeableness, and Judging with Conscientiousness. The Big Five also measures emotional stability, which type tests leave out.

Use your type as a vocabulary for talking about preferences, not as a fixed label or a hiring tool. For a claim-by-claim look at the evidence, read is MBTI scientifically valid?. If you have wondered why everyone around you seems to know their four letters, we look at that in why MBTI is so popular, especially in Korea.

All Possible Results

There are 16 types. A common way to group them uses the second letter plus one more: NT, NF, SJ and SP. Each type below links to a full guide, and our complete guide to the 16 personality types explains the letters and cognitive functions in depth.

• INTJ, The Strategist: plans years ahead and improves whatever it touches.
• INTP, The Theorist: asks how things really work and enjoys finding the flaw.
• ENTJ, The Director: sets the goal and organises people to reach it.
• ENTP, The Inventor: generates ideas fast and tests them through debate.
• INFJ, The Counselor: reads people deeply and works toward a personal vision.
• INFP, The Idealist: lives by inner values and expresses them creatively.
• ENFJ, The Mentor: brings people together and helps them grow.
• ENFP, The Spark: warm, curious and full of possibilities.
• ISTJ, The Inspector: dependable, exact and loyal to commitments.
• ISFJ, The Guardian: cares for people through quiet, practical help.
• ESTJ, The Organizer: turns plans into schedules and results.
• ESFJ, The Host: makes people feel welcome and keeps groups in harmony.
• ISTP, The Craftsperson: calm troubleshooter who learns by doing.
• ISFP, The Artist: gentle, aesthetic and true to personal values.
• ESTP, The Dynamo: bold, practical and quick to act.
• ESFP, The Performer: lively, generous and fun in any room.

How To Read Your Result

Start with your percentages, not the letters. A 52% Thinking result and a 90% Thinking result describe very different people, even though both get a T.

1. Find your strongest dimension. It is the part of your type that will feel most accurate.
2. Check any score under 60%. Read the description for the type with that letter flipped. Many people find the truth sits between the two.
3. Look at the “Watch for” line. The blind spots are usually more useful than the strengths, because they are harder to see on your own.
4. Retake it in a few weeks. If your letters stay the same, your preferences are stable. If one flips, you are genuinely balanced on that dimension.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Tests

If you want a second view of your personality, try the Enneagram test, which looks at core motivations rather than preferences. The 12 archetypes test explores the story you live by.

• Personality

  Enneagram Test

  54 statements about why you do what you do. See your score on all nine Enneagram types, your likely main type and the runner-up that may be your wing.

  54 questions, 9 min

• Personality

  Big Five Personality Test

  Fifty research-grade items from the public-domain IPIP pool score you on the five traits psychologists use most: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

  50 questions, 7 min

• Personality

  Introvert, Extrovert or Ambivert Test

  Twenty statements reveal where you sit between introvert and extrovert, and break it down into social energy, love of stimulation and expressiveness.

  20 questions, 4 min

• Personality

  Difficult Person Test

  Thirty-five honest statements score you on seven traits that make people harder to live and work with, from callousness to control.

  35 questions, 6 min

• Personality

  Alpha, Beta or Omega Test

  Twelve everyday situations reveal whether you move through groups as an Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Sigma or Omega, with your full mix shown.

  12 questions, 3 min

• Personality

  12 Archetypes Test

  Thirty-six statements score you on all twelve archetypes, from the Innocent to the Ruler, so you can see the story you live by and your strongest supporting roles.

  36 questions, 6 min