PEN Personality Test: See Your Extraversion, Neuroticism and Tough-Mindedness Bars

Reading the three bars together

Each bar is the share of that dimension's ten statements you endorsed, after reversing the items written toward the opposite pole. Read over 60 percent as high, under 40 as low and the middle as balanced; these are educational thresholds, not the normed cutoffs of the published questionnaire. The leading reading above describes your highest bar, but the model only makes sense as a combination, so start with Extraversion and Neuroticism together. A high E and low N profile is the stable extravert: sociable, lively, carefree, the sanguine type of the old humoural theory. High E with high N is the unstable extravert: active, excitable, touchy, quick to anger and quick to recover, the choleric type. Low E with low N is the stable introvert: calm, even, reliable, reserved, the phlegmatic type. Low E with high N is the unstable introvert: quiet, anxious, moody, reflective, the melancholic type.

Psychoticism then modifies that picture. A high P bar adds toughness, independence and a willingness to break convention to any quadrant; a low P bar adds warmth, conscientiousness and a wish to fit in. A stable extravert with high P is a bold, unsentimental operator; the same quadrant with low P is a warm, sociable team player. An unstable introvert with high P can feel isolated and at odds with the world; with low P, the same person is sensitive and conscientious, often an anxious perfectionist. If your bars are all in the middle, the model has less to say about you, and that is a real finding: you adapt your style to the situation rather than running on one setting. The temperament test at Temperament Test gives the four-quadrant picture directly if that is the part you find most useful.

The arousal theory in one paragraph

Eysenck proposed in 1967 that the three dimensions had biological roots. Introverts, he argued, have a cortex that is more easily aroused by stimulation, so they reach their comfortable level of alertness quickly and then avoid noise, crowds and novelty; extraverts are chronically under-aroused and seek stimulation to reach the same level, which is why they want the party, the risk and the company. Neuroticism, in his account, reflects a reactive limbic system and autonomic nervous system: a body that responds to stress quickly and strongly and takes a long time to settle. Psychoticism he linked more loosely to hormonal factors, and that part of the theory never found consistent support.

Later research kept the broad idea and corrected the details. Introverts and extraverts do differ in how they respond to stimulation, but the difference is better described as reactivity to arousal than as a fixed baseline, and the modern reward-sensitivity account of extraversion, in which extraverts respond more strongly to potential rewards, explains more of the data. The biology of Neuroticism, including its heritability and its links to stress physiology, has held up well. If the energy side of this interests you, the introvert-extrovert test at Introvert or Extrovert Quiz explores the stimulation account in more depth, and the neuroticism test at Neuroticism Test measures the reactivity dimension with a validated scale.

What the EPQ is and is not

Eysenck's dimensions were measured by a sequence of questionnaires: the Maudsley Personality Inventory, the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire of 1975 and its 1985 revision, the EPQ-R, with a short form and a later brief version, the EPQ-BV. These are copyrighted instruments with published norms, a Lie scale that detects socially desirable answering, and a large research literature across many countries. Their yes-or-no items are not reproduced on this page; the 30 statements here are original, and the dimension names are used only to describe the model this page follows.

The absence of a Lie scale matters. The published questionnaire can flag a profile in which someone has presented themselves as unrealistically virtuous; this one cannot, so if you answered to look good, the bars will reflect that and nobody will tell you. The absence of norms matters too: a 70 percent Neuroticism bar means you agreed with most of those statements, not that you are more reactive than 70 percent of people. For a normed trait profile with the strongest research base, the Big Five Personality Test is the instrument to take, and the HEXACO Personality Test adds the honesty-humility dimension that absorbs much of what Eysenck's P scale was trying to capture.

What to do with your result

A PEN profile is most useful as a description of your default settings, the things you do when nothing in the situation is pushing you one way or the other. Extraversion tells you how much stimulation and company to build into a week before you feel flat or frayed. Neuroticism tells you how much recovery time to plan after stress and how seriously to take your first emotional reaction to an event. Psychoticism tells you how much effort it will take to work inside other people's rules and how much you are likely to underrate other people's feelings.

None of the three is a problem in itself, and all three have been linked to real strengths: extraverts build networks, high-N people notice risks and care deeply, and high-P people innovate and tolerate disapproval. The costs appear at the extremes and under stress. If a high Neuroticism bar comes with poor sleep, persistent worry or low mood, the anxiety test at Anxiety Test uses a validated screener and a licensed therapist can help with the reactivity itself, which is far more changeable than the trait name suggests. If a high P bar is costing you relationships or jobs, the same conversation is worth having; empathy and impulse control are skills, and they can be built at any age.

Methodology & sources

This test is an original educational profile written in the shape of Hans Eysenck's three-dimensional PEN model of personality: Psychoticism, Extraversion and Neuroticism. We wrote ten plain statements for each dimension, 30 in total, answered on a five-point agreement scale, with two Extraversion items, two Neuroticism items, and three Psychoticism items written toward the opposite pole and reverse-scored so that an agreeing response style does not inflate every bar. Psychoticism is framed throughout as Eysenck and his collaborators described its content in their revised 1985 scale: tough-mindedness, non-conformity, impulsivity and low empathy. It is not a measure of psychosis, and the readings never treat it as one. The engine shows all three dimensions as percentage bars, and the leading reading belongs to the highest bar; the thresholds at 40 and 60 percent are educational, not clinical or normed cutoffs.

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, its 1985 revision (the EPQ-R) and the brief EPQ-BV are copyrighted instruments with published norms and a Lie scale; none of their items are reproduced here and the names are used only to describe the model this page follows and the instruments it is not. Our three ten-item groupings are not validated scales, no reliability or validity data exist for them, and the references below describe the original model, its revision and its relationship to other trait systems rather than validating this questionnaire. Eysenck's own 1991 argument for three dimensions over sixteen or five, and the Big Five research that largely absorbed his model, are both cited so you can see where the debate stands.

A note on the P scale, which is the most contested part of the model. Eysenck's hope that it would capture a continuum from ordinary toughness to psychosis was not borne out; the scale correlates with low agreeableness and low conscientiousness in the Big Five, with impulsivity and sensation-seeking, and with the honesty-humility dimension of the HEXACO model, rather than with any measure of psychotic experience. We keep the name for fidelity to the model and explain its real content wherever it appears, including in the FAQ.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed the three original item sets, the framing of Psychoticism as tough-mindedness rather than psychosis, and the combination readings for fidelity to Eysenck's model. Last reviewed October 5, 2026.

References

1. Eysenck HJ, Eysenck SBG. Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Junior and Adult). London: Hodder & Stoughton; 1975.
2. Eysenck SBG, Eysenck HJ, Barrett P. A revised version of the psychoticism scale. Personality and Individual Differences. 1985;6(1):21–29.
3. Eysenck HJ. The Biological Basis of Personality. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas; 1967.
4. 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
5. Goldberg LR. An alternative "description of personality": The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1990;59(6):1216–1229. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216

PEN Personality Test (Eysenck Model) FAQ