What is the 16PF personality test?
The 16PF, short for 16 Personality Factors, is a personality model
developed by the psychologist Raymond Cattell. The idea is that the many
words we use to describe people boil down to 16 underlying factors, from
warmth and reasoning to self-reliance and tension. Together they give a
detailed, rounded picture of how someone tends to think, work and relate
to others.
It is one of the longer-established personality questionnaires and is
popular with employers. It is used in career planning, employee
development, coaching and occupational psychology, usually to understand
someone’s natural working style rather than to pass or fail them.
Is this the official 16PF test?
No, and it is worth being clear about that. This is a free practice test
built in the style of the 16PF, using our own original questions. It is
not the official 16PF Questionnaire and is not affiliated with 16PF or its
publisher, IPAT.
The official questionnaire has around 185 items and is normally taken
through a qualified administrator. Our version is shorter, at 48
questions, and is designed to give you a genuine feel for the 16-factor
framework and a useful read on your own profile, without any sign-up,
payment or administrator. If you have a real 16PF assessment coming up,
this is a good way to get familiar with how it works and what each factor
means.
What are the 16 personality factors?
Each factor is a spectrum, and there is no better or worse end. Where you
sit simply describes a tendency.
- Warmth: how warm and outgoing you are, versus reserved and
self-contained.
- Reasoning: how quickly you tend to pick up and work through new
ideas, versus preferring the practical and concrete.
- Emotional Stability: how calm and steady you stay, versus how
readily you react to stress and setbacks.
- Assertiveness: how forceful and take-charge you are, versus
accommodating.
- Liveliness: how lively and spontaneous you are, versus serious and
measured.
- Dutifulness: how much you stick to rules and standards, versus
taking a flexible view.
- Social Confidence: how bold and at ease you are socially, versus
shy and cautious.
- Sensitivity: how tender-minded and tuned in to feelings you are,
versus tough-minded and objective.
- Vigilance: how watchful and questioning you are of others, versus
trusting.
- Imagination: how imaginative and idea-focused you are, versus
grounded and practical.
- Privateness: how private and discreet you are, versus open and
forthright.
- Self-Assurance: how self-assured you are, versus self-questioning
and prone to worry.
- Openness to Change: how much you embrace change, versus preferring
the familiar.
- Self-Reliance: how self-reliant and independent you are, versus
group-oriented.
- Perfectionism: how organised and exacting you are, versus relaxed
about detail.
- Tension: how tense and driven you feel, versus relaxed and
unhurried.
Your results below explain what a higher or lower score on each factor
tends to mean in practice.
How is the 16PF different from the Big Five?
They are closely related. The Big Five describes personality with five
broad traits, while the 16PF breaks personality into 16 narrower factors.
In fact the 16 factors group together into five “global factors” that line
up closely with the Big Five, so the two models tell a similar story at
different levels of detail.
The advantage of the 16-factor view is precision. Two people can look
similar on a broad Big Five trait but differ on the finer factors
underneath it, and the 16PF is designed to pick that up. If you want the
broader picture instead, our
Big Five personality test covers
the five-trait model.
How do you read your results?
Your results place you somewhere on a spectrum for each of the 16 factors,
not a single score to beat. A result near the middle simply means your
answers were fairly balanced on that factor, not that you did anything
wrong. There is no total score, no overall grade and nothing to pass.
It helps to read each factor on its own rather than looking for a single
overall “type”. Most real profiles are a mix of higher, lower and
middling factors, and that is completely normal. The value is in what each
factor tells you about how you tend to work and relate to others, which
you can read alongside the explanation for each one further down this
page.
Is there a right or wrong answer, and do you need to prepare?
No. Unlike a numerical, verbal or logical reasoning test, a personality
questionnaire has no correct answers and nothing to calculate. It simply
reflects how you described yourself, so there is no benefit to revising,
timing yourself or looking up “correct” responses beforehand.
The one thing worth doing is answering honestly and consistently.
Personality questionnaires used by employers often include similar
statements phrased in different ways to check that your answers hold
together, so trying to guess the “ideal” profile for a role tends to
produce a less coherent, less useful result than simply answering as
yourself.
How do employers use 16PF results?
Employers use personality results to understand fit and working style,
not to sift candidates the way they do with scored aptitude tests. A
hiring team might use your profile to see how you are likely to approach a
role, work in a team or handle pressure, then explore that further at
interview.
It is also common for employers to pair a personality questionnaire with
one or more scored aptitude tests, since the two measure different things:
personality describes your natural style, while aptitude tests measure how
accurately and quickly you can reason under time pressure. If you have an
assessment coming up, it is worth knowing what those aptitude tests look
like too.
