16 Personality Factors Test: See Your Leading Factor and All Sixteen Trait Bars
This 16 personality factors test places you on the sixteen primary traits Raymond Cattell identified, from Warmth and Dominance to Apprehension and Tension. Get all sixteen as low, mid or high bars, a plain reading of your leading factor, and an optional PDF.
Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW 
16 Personality Factors Test (16PF-Style) is a free, confidential 48-question self-assessment, original items in Cattell's 16-factor map, not the 16PF. It takes about 6 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language profile of your strongest style plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Sixteen factors, not sixteen types
Cattell's model describes personality as sixteen continuous traits, each a spectrum between two poles, rather than a set of categories. This test places you on all sixteen so you can see the whole shape at once, and it explains how they combine into the five broader global factors that line up closely with the Big Five. The items are original, written in Cattell's factor map; this is not the proprietary 16PF Questionnaire.
All sixteen primary factors
Warmth, Reasoning, Emotional stability, Dominance, Liveliness, Rule-consciousness, Social boldness, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Abstractedness, Privateness, Apprehension, Openness to change, Self-reliance, Perfectionism and Tension. Three original statements per factor, every factor shown as a bar, none hidden behind a paywall.
The five global factors
Cattell found that the sixteen primary factors cluster into five broader ones: Extraversion, Anxiety, Tough-mindedness, Independence and Self-control. We explain which of your bars feed each global factor so you can read the summary and the detail together, instead of getting one without the other.
Honest about what it is
The 16PF Questionnaire is a proprietary, normed instrument. This page uses original items in the same factor map and tells you so. Your bars show how strongly you endorsed each factor's statements, not where you stand against a normative sample, and the readings are written for reflection rather than selection.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Scores all sixteen factors as bars | Often a handful, or one label | Yes, all sixteen visible |
| Explains the five global factors | Rarely | Yes, with the factors that feed each |
| Original items, no copied proprietary content | Often unclear | Yes, 48 original statements |
| Clears up the 16 factors vs 16 types confusion | Often blurs them | Yes, explained in a FAQ |
| Honest about norms | Fake percentiles | Endorsement bars, clearly labeled |
| Clinician-reviewed interpretation | Rarely | Yes, reviewed |
| Answers stay on your device | Often collected | Scored in your browser; only summary scores if you request a PDF or report |
The 16 patterns this test measures
- Warmth (A): Outgoing, attentive to others, easy to be with.
- Reasoning (B, self-rated): Enjoyment of abstract thinking and problem-solving.
- Emotional stability (C): Calm, adaptable, quick to recover.
- Dominance (E): Assertive, forceful, comfortable taking charge.
- Liveliness (F): Energetic, spontaneous, fun-loving.
- Rule-consciousness (G): Dutiful, principled, follows the rules.
- Social boldness (H): Venturesome, thick-skinned, at ease in the spotlight.
- Sensitivity (I): Tender-minded, aesthetic, guided by feeling.
- Vigilance (L): Watchful, skeptical, slow to take motives at face value.
- Abstractedness (M): Imaginative, idea-oriented, absent-minded about practicalities.
- Privateness (N): Discreet, non-disclosing, hard to read.
- Apprehension (O): Self-doubting, worried, prone to guilt.
- Openness to change (Q1): Experimenting, questioning, restless with the status quo.
- Self-reliance (Q2): Solitary, individualistic, resourceful.
- Perfectionism (Q3): Organized, self-disciplined, precise.
- Tension (Q4): Driven, impatient, wound up.
If nothing is endorsed, every pattern scores the same, or the leading patterns tie, the result says so instead of naming a single pattern.
How the scoring works
Each of the sixteen factors has three original statements, answered on a five-point agreement scale. The engine adds your three answers for each factor and shows the result as a percentage bar: the share of the available points you gave that factor. We read a bar under 40 percent as low, 40 to 60 as mid, and over 60 as high, which are educational thresholds rather than clinical or normed cutoffs. Your leading factor is simply the highest bar, and its reading describes what a high standing on that factor usually looks like in daily life.
Because the real 16PF uses standardized sten scores built from a normative sample, a high bar here does not mean you are higher than most people; it means you agreed with most of that factor's statements. Three items per factor is enough for a reflective profile and too few for measurement, so treat close bars as equivalent and expect some movement if you retake the test on a different day. The value is in the overall shape and in the global-factor summary below, not in any single number.
The five global factors, read from your bars
Cattell found that the sixteen primary factors are not independent; they cluster into five broader global factors, which later research showed line up closely with the Big Five. Extraversion rises with Warmth, Liveliness and Social boldness and falls with Privateness and Self-reliance. Anxiety rises with Vigilance, Apprehension and Tension and falls with Emotional stability. Tough-mindedness is high when Warmth, Sensitivity, Abstractedness and Openness to change are all low: a practical, unsentimental, concrete style. Independence rises with Dominance, Social boldness, Vigilance and Openness to change. Self-control rises with Rule-consciousness and Perfectionism and falls with Liveliness and Abstractedness.
To read your own global profile, look at the bars that feed each cluster and ask whether they lean the same way. Someone with high Warmth, Liveliness and Social boldness and low Privateness is clearly extraverted; someone with high Apprehension and Tension but also high Emotional stability has a mixed anxiety picture worth thinking about, since the stability bar suggests good recovery from the worry the other two describe. The Big Five Personality Test measures those broad traits directly and with far more items, and the HEXACO Personality Test adds an honesty-humility dimension that Cattell's map does not cover.
What the 16PF is and is not
The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire grew out of Raymond Cattell's factor-analytic work in the 1940s, which began from the thousands of trait words in the English dictionary and reduced them to a smaller number of underlying source traits. The questionnaire was first published in 1949 and has been revised several times; the current Fifth Edition dates from 1993 and is published by Talogy, formerly PSI Services and originally the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing. It is a normal-range personality measure, used in career counseling, selection, coaching and research rather than for assessing any condition, and it is sold with norms, reliability data and interpretive reports to qualified users.
This page is not that instrument. The items are original, there are no norms, and the Reasoning factor in particular is handled differently: in the real 16PF, Reasoning is a short ability scale with right and wrong answers, whereas here it is a self-rating of how much you enjoy and seek out abstract problem-solving, which is a preference rather than a measured ability. For an actual estimate of reasoning, the logical reasoning test at Logical Reasoning Test and the IQ test at IQ Test: Free Reasoning Quiz use scored items. Treat every reading here as a description to compare with your own experience, never as a verdict on ability or suitability for a role.
What to do with your profile
Start with the shape rather than the leading factor. Notice the three or four bars at the extremes, high or low, because the extremes are where a trait shows up in daily life and where friction with other people tends to come from. A high Dominance bar beside a low Warmth bar reads very differently from the same Dominance beside high Warmth, and a high Apprehension bar is a different experience when Emotional stability is also high than when it is low.
Then pick one factor to work with rather than trying to change your personality. Traits are fairly stable, but the behavior attached to them is not: a highly private person can choose to share one more thing per week, a highly tense person can build in deliberate recovery, a very self-reliant person can practice asking for help on something small. If a factor is costing you relationships, work or peace of mind, a therapist can help you work with it rather than against it. The broad personality test at Personality Test is a good companion if you want a different lens on the same questions.
Methodology & sources
This test is an original educational profile written in the factor map of Raymond Cattell's sixteen primary personality factors. Cattell's lexical and factor-analytic program, beginning with his 1943 reduction of trait words into clusters, produced the sixteen source traits that the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire measures: Warmth (A), Reasoning (B), Emotional stability (C), Dominance (E), Liveliness (F), Rule-consciousness (G), Social boldness (H), Sensitivity (I), Vigilance (L), Abstractedness (M), Privateness (N), Apprehension (O), Openness to change (Q1), Self-reliance (Q2), Perfectionism (Q3) and Tension (Q4). We wrote three plain statements for each factor, 48 in total, answered on a five-point agreement scale, and the engine shows every factor as a percentage bar with your highest bar as the leading factor. The low, mid and high labels at 40 and 60 percent are educational thresholds, not normed or clinical cutoffs.
The 16PF Questionnaire is a proprietary published instrument, currently published by Talogy (formerly PSI Services, originally the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing), with normative samples, sten scores and technical manuals. None of its items are reproduced here, and 16PF is named only to describe what this page is modeled on and what it is not. Our sixteen groupings follow Cattell's factor names but are our own three-item sets, not validated scales; no reliability or validity data exist for them, and the references below describe the original model and its relationship to other trait systems rather than validating this page. Where the real instrument measures Reasoning as an ability with scored items, we ask about preference for abstract thinking, which is a different thing.
Cattell's model remains important because it is one of the roots of modern trait psychology: his five global factors, extracted from the sixteen primaries, correspond closely to the Big Five that dominates research today, and the debate between sixteen, five and three factors shaped the field. For a measured trait profile with the strongest evidence base, the Big Five test on Psychology.com is the right instrument; this page is for people who want to see Cattell's finer-grained map and reflect on where they sit within it.
References
- Cattell RB. The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into clusters. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1943;38(4):476–506. doi.org/10.1037/h0054116
- Cattell RB, Eber HW, Tatsuoka MM. Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing; 1970.
- Conn SR, Rieke ML, eds. The 16PF Fifth Edition Technical Manual. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing; 1994.
- Cattell HEP, Mead AD. The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). In: Boyle GJ, Matthews G, Saklofske DH, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment. Vol 2. London: SAGE; 2008:135–159.
- Eysenck HJ. Dimensions of personality: 16, 5 or 3? Criteria for a taxonomic paradigm. Personality and Individual Differences. 1991;12(8):773–790. doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90144-Z
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, October 5). 16 Personality Factors Test (16PF-Style). Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/16-personality-factors
16 Personality Factors Test (16PF-Style) FAQ
Is this the official 16PF Questionnaire?
No. The 16PF Questionnaire is a proprietary instrument published by Talogy (formerly PSI Services), with norms, sten scores and technical manuals, sold to qualified users. This page uses 48 original statements in Cattell's sixteen-factor map for education and self-reflection. It is not normed, not validated and not affiliated with the publisher.
What is the difference between 16 personality factors and 16 personality types?
They are unrelated systems that happen to share a number. The sixteen factors are Cattell's continuous traits, each a spectrum such as reserved to warm or trusting to vigilant, and you get a standing on all sixteen. The sixteen types come from Jungian typology: four either-or preferences combine into one of sixteen four-letter codes, and you get a single type. If you want the type result, our 16 personalities test is the one to take; this page gives you traits, not a type.
How do the sixteen factors relate to the Big Five?
Closely. Cattell's own second-order analysis found that the sixteen primaries cluster into five global factors: Extraversion, Anxiety, Tough-mindedness, Independence and Self-control. Those correspond broadly to the Big Five traits of extraversion, neuroticism, openness (reversed), agreeableness (reversed, with a dash of assertiveness) and conscientiousness. The Big Five test measures the broad level directly; this page shows the finer grain underneath it.
Why is my Reasoning bar a self-rating?
In the real 16PF, Reasoning (factor B) is a short ability scale with right and wrong answers, not a self-report. We do not include scored ability items on this page, so our Reasoning bar reflects how much you enjoy and seek out abstract problem-solving, which is a preference. For a scored estimate, take the logical reasoning test.
Is the test really confidential?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers are scored in your browser and are never sent to us or linked to you. They stay in this tab so you can return to your result, and closing or clearing the tab clears them. If you ask us to email the PDF, we receive your summary scores with your email address, never your individual answers. No account is needed.
Is the 16PF used in hiring?
The official 16PF is used by some employers in selection, development and coaching, usually interpreted by a trained practitioner alongside interviews. This page is not built or validated for hiring and should never be used to screen anyone. It is for your own reflection; if an employer has asked you to complete the official questionnaire, answer it honestly, as its consistency checks are designed to notice impression management.
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