Distress Tolerance Test: See How Well You Sit With Hard Feelings Across Four Factors
This distress tolerance test explores how well you can bear an uncomfortable feeling without being overwhelmed by it or rushing to escape it. Sixteen original statements follow the four-factor shape of distress tolerance research. Get an instant score, a four-part breakdown, and an optional PDF for reflection.
Reviewed byMichael Callans, MSWDistress Tolerance Test is a free, confidential 16-question self-assessment, original items in the four-factor shape of the DTS. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 4 interpretation bands plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Four factors behind sitting with a hard feeling
Distress tolerance is the capacity to experience an unpleasant emotional state without being flattened by it or scrambling to make it stop. Research splits it into four parts: whether you can bear the feeling, how you judge yourself for having it, how much of your attention it swallows, and how hard you work to escape it. This self-assessment measures all four, so your weakest link is visible.
Original items, four factors
Sixteen plain statements written for this page in the four-factor shape of the Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons and Gaher, 2005): tolerance, appraisal, absorption, and regulation, four items each, half worded in each direction to guard against simply agreeing.
A score where higher is better
Unlike symptom screeners, this total rises with capacity. A higher score means you can stay with discomfort longer, judge yourself less for it, keep more of your attention, and act less impulsively to escape it.
One skill for your weakest factor
Most quizzes stop at a label. Your breakdown shows which of the four factors is lowest for you, and the result text pairs each one with a specific, evidence-based skill from dialectical behavior therapy and acceptance-based approaches.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Follows the published four-factor model | Rarely | Yes, tolerance, appraisal, absorption, regulation |
| Balanced wording with reverse-scored items | Often one-directional | Yes, eight of sixteen reverse-scored |
| Names your weakest factor and a skill for it | No | Yes, in every result |
| Explains distress tolerance vs emotion regulation vs resilience | Rarely | Yes, on this page |
| Clinician-reviewed interpretation | Rarely | Yes, clinician reviewed |
| Answers stay on your device | Often collected | Scored in your browser; only summary scores if you request a PDF or report |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–64 in total. Your result falls into one of 4 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–16 | Distress is very hard to sit with right now | Your answers suggest that uncomfortable feelings currently feel unbearable, take over your attention, and push you to escape fast. That is a skill gap, not a character flaw, and it is one of the most teachable skills in psychology. |
| 17–32 | Building distress tolerance | Your answers suggest you can sit with hard feelings some of the time, but at least one factor is pulling the total down and escape still wins more often than you would like. |
| 33–48 | Solid distress tolerance | Your answers suggest you can usually bear an uncomfortable feeling, keep most of your attention, and wait before acting. One factor may still be softer than the others. |
| 49–64 | Strong distress tolerance | Your answers describe a high capacity to sit with hard feelings: you can bear them, you do not judge yourself for them, they do not take over, and you act on them only when you choose to. |
How the distress tolerance test is scored
Each of the 16 statements is rated from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (4). Eight statements describe tolerating distress well and eight describe struggling with it; the second group is reverse-scored internally, so a higher total always means more capacity. The total runs from 0 to 64 and is split into four factors of four items each, following the structure that Simons and Gaher found in the original Distress Tolerance Scale: tolerance (can you bear the feeling), appraisal (do you judge yourself for having it), absorption (does it take over your attention), and regulation (how hard do you work to escape it). Our items are original and the four groups are our own mapping onto that model, not validated subscales.
The four bands sit at quarters of the range and are educational, not clinical cutoffs; no clinical threshold exists for distress tolerance. Read the breakdown first. The lowest of your four bars is where a single skill will do the most good, and the band text pairs each factor with one.
Distress tolerance vs emotion regulation vs resilience
These three get mixed up constantly, and the difference matters for choosing what to work on. Distress tolerance is what you do during an unpleasant feeling you cannot immediately change: can you let it be there without acting on it. Emotion regulation is the wider set of skills for changing feelings, before, during, and after: reappraising a situation, soothing your body, choosing what to pay attention to. The Emotional Dysregulation Test looks at that broader picture. Resilience is the longer arc: how well you recover and adapt after adversity over weeks and months, which the Resilience Test measures.
In dialectical behavior therapy, distress tolerance and emotion regulation are taught as separate modules for exactly this reason. Tolerance skills are for surviving a crisis moment without making it worse; regulation skills are for having fewer and smaller crises over time. Someone can be excellent at one and weak at the other. If your nervous system feels stuck on high alert most of the time, the Nervous System Dysregulation Test looks at the physiological side, and if uncertainty itself is what you cannot bear, the Intolerance of Uncertainty Test asks about that specifically.
What low distress tolerance looks like day to day
Low distress tolerance rarely announces itself as a feeling. It shows up as behavior: the snack, drink, purchase, argument, or hour of scrolling that arrives within minutes of an uncomfortable emotion. The feeling itself might be brief; the escape behavior is what costs. Research reviews link low distress tolerance with a wide range of difficulties, including substance use, disordered eating, anxiety, and depression, not because it causes them directly but because escaping discomfort quickly is a common path into each.
The good news is that tolerance is a skill, and it builds the way any skill does: with graded practice. People who learn to wait sixty seconds before acting on an urge tend to find that the urge peaks and falls on its own, which is the whole lesson. Your coping style matters too; the Coping Styles Test (Brief COPE) test shows whether you lean on approach, avoidance, or support when things get hard.
What to do with your result
Find your lowest bar and take the matching skill from your band text. Practice it on small discomforts first: a boring queue, a mildly awkward conversation, a craving you can safely wait out. Capacity built on small moments transfers to larger ones. If distress regularly leads you to harm yourself, use substances, or act in ways you regret, a therapist trained in dialectical behavior therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy can teach these skills in a structured way. The search below filters for therapists who work with emotions and regulation.
Methodology & sources
The 16 statements are original to Psychology.com. Their structure follows the four factors identified by Simons and Gaher (2005) in the Distress Tolerance Scale: tolerance, appraisal, absorption, and regulation. The DTS items themselves are not reproduced. Four original statements sit in each factor, two worded toward tolerating distress well and two toward struggling with it; the latter are reverse-scored so that a higher total consistently means greater capacity. Each statement is rated on a five-point agreement scale from 0 to 4, giving a total from 0 to 64.
The four groups are our own educational mapping onto the published model and have not been validated as subscales; the DTS's own factor structure does not transfer to new items. The four result bands divide the range into quarters for reflection and are not clinical cutoffs. The skill suggested for each factor draws on dialectical behavior therapy's distress tolerance module (Linehan, 2015) and on the review by Leyro, Zvolensky, and Bernstein (2010), which links low distress tolerance with a wide range of psychological difficulties.
This screening is for education and self-reflection. The references support the construct and its correlates; they do not validate this questionnaire or its bands. A low score describes a skill that can be built, not a verdict. If distress regularly leads to self-harm, substance use, or other behavior that frightens you, that is a reason to talk with a clinician rather than to retake the test.
References
- Simons JS, Gaher RM. The Distress Tolerance Scale: Development and validation of a self-report measure. Motivation and Emotion. 2005;29(2):83-102. doi.org/10.1007/s11031-005-7955-3
- Leyro TM, Zvolensky MJ, Bernstein A. Distress tolerance and psychopathological symptoms and disorders: A review of the empirical literature among adults. Psychological Bulletin. 2010;136(4):576-600. doi.org/10.1037/a0019712
- Linehan MM. DBT Skills Training Manual. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press; 2015. ISBN 9781462516995.
- Zvolensky MJ, Vujanovic AA, Bernstein A, Leyro T. Distress tolerance: Theory, measurement, and relations to psychopathology. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2010;19(6):406-410. doi.org/10.1177/0963721410388642
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, October 20). Distress Tolerance Test. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/distress-tolerance
Distress Tolerance Test FAQ
What is distress tolerance?
Distress tolerance is the ability to experience an uncomfortable emotional state without being overwhelmed by it or rushing to escape it. Research describes four parts: whether you can bear the feeling, how you judge yourself for having it, how much of your attention it takes, and how hard you work to make it stop. This test measures all four.
Is this the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS)?
No. The DTS is a 15-item research instrument by Simons and Gaher (2005). This test uses 16 original statements written in the same four-factor shape, so it is informed by the DTS but does not reproduce its items. Scores from the two should not be compared.
What are distress tolerance skills?
In dialectical behavior therapy, distress tolerance skills are techniques for getting through a crisis moment without making it worse: distracting briefly, soothing the senses, changing body temperature or breathing to calm the nervous system, and radically accepting what cannot be changed right now. Your result pairs one skill with whichever of the four factors is lowest for you.
How is distress tolerance different from emotion regulation?
Distress tolerance is what you do during a feeling you cannot change right now; emotion regulation is the wider set of skills for changing feelings before, during, and after. Someone can be strong at one and weak at the other. The emotional dysregulation test looks at the broader regulation picture, and the resilience test covers recovery over the longer term.
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.
Can distress tolerance be improved?
Yes, and it responds well to practice. Waiting a short time before acting on an urge, noticing that a feeling peaks and falls on its own, and practicing on small discomforts all build capacity. Structured skills training in dialectical behavior therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy is the most studied route when the pattern is causing real harm.