Help Topics

Accounts

Why should I register an account?
You can take most of our personality tests without an account; but, having an account gives you access to many exclusive Personality Assessor features. With an account, you can:
  • Save the results of your personality tests, and review them whenever you want.
  • Use the History feature, which lets you take the personality tests multiple times and view how your scores have changed over time.
  • Compare your results with your friends' results, if you've both taken the same personality tests.
  • Access exclusive, members-only assessments.
As accounts are free and registration is quick and easy, there's no reason not to register an account.
Why do some personality assessments require me to register an account?
Most of our personality assessments do not require you to register an account. However, a few of our personality tests have multiple parts and show you your results over time; and some of our tests are "sequels" that build upon the results of other assessments. For these types of personality tests, you need an account to link your responses together.

Even with these special multipart/sequel tests, your responses are still completely anonymous. The results of these tests are saved to your account so that you can review them at any time. However, you can permanently disassociate your results from your account at any time. Doing so destroys any and all links between your results and your account.
How do I access my account that I created with Facebook?
As of July 2021, Personality Assessor no longer allows users to sign in with Facebook—due to privacy and tracking concerns.

If you have previously created a Personality Assessor account using Facebook, you may use the password reset feature to create a password that will allow you to sign into your existing account using Personality Assessor's login forms.
How do I delete my account?
Before deleting your account, perhaps one of the following solutions will solve your problem:

If you'd like to ensure that your test results are completely private (i.e., no one else can see them), simply visit your account settings and set the "Share your results with" option to "No one". This will prevent anyone (even people on your friends list) from seeing your results.

If you'd like to stop receiving all email communication from Personality Assessor, visit your account settings and set the "Disable all communication from Personality Assessor" option to "Yes".

If you still wish to delete your account, you must first sign in and then visit this page. Deleting your account is permanent and cannot be undone. As stated in the privacy policy and on the consent form for all assessments, even if you delete your account, your completely anonymous responses will be retained for academic research purposes. However, they will be completely disassociated from your account and made completely anonymous so that they cannot be linked to your account or identity in any way.

Results

How accurate are the results of my assessments?
Personality Assessor compares your scores on the personality tests to real data from up to hundreds of thousands of other people who have taken the same tests. So, your results pages give you an accurate picture of how you currently compare to everyone else who has taken the test.

There are, however, several important caveats for interpreting your results, including the fact that your personality is a moving target, and each test captures only a small snapshot of who you are at a single point in time. For more information, please see our results interpretation guide.

Results Interpretation Guide
How long do results pages last?
Results pages that are not saved to an account persist for approximately 30-90 days before being permanently deleted.

If you save the results of an assessment to your account, the results page will last until you decide to delete it.
How do I save my results?
If you complete a personality test while you are signed into your account, your results will be automatically saved.

If you complete a personality test while you are not signed into an account, your results page will have a section titled "Save Your Results". If you use the sign-in/registration buttons in that section, your results will be saved to your account. If you leave the page without saving your results, you will not be able to save the results of that assessment.
How do I view previously saved results?
To view your previously saved results, you must first sign into your account. Once signed into your account, there are two ways to view the results of previous assessments.
  1. Find the assessment on the homepage. Links to view your results will appear beneath the assessment. Try sorting the tests by "Date Taken" to see results of recent assessments.
  2. On the assessment's welcome page, links to view your results will appears in the right-hand column.

History and Group-Compare Features

How do I see if my personality has changed over time?
If you complete any personality test more than once and save the results to your account, you will be able to use the History feature.

A History button will appear beneath any survey you have completed. Simply click the button to see graphs of how your personality has changed over time.
How do I compare my results with friends?
In order to compare results with friends:
  • Both you and your friend(s) will need to register accounts.
  • Both you and your friend(s) will need to complete the same personality test, and save your results to your respective accounts.
  • Both you and your friend(s) will need to add each other as friends on Personality Assessor. When signed into your account, you can search for friends in the right-hand column of the homepage.
  • Make sure you and your friend(s) have enabled results sharing. In your account settings (accessed by clicking the gear icon when signed in), either share your results with "Your friends" or with "Everyone". If your friends have decided to share their results with "No one", you will not be able to compare results with them.
Once you've followed all the above instructions, you can compare results in one of two ways.
  1. Click on a friend in your friends list on the homepage. In the pop-up window, choose which assessment you would like to compare with this friend. If no assessments are listed, either you haven't taken any of the same tests, or your friend has chosen to not share the results of their assessments.
  2. Click on the "Group" button beneath any assessment you've completed. In the pop-up window, select which friends you want to compare results with. If the friend you're looking for isn't listed in the pop-up window, either they have not taken that assessment, or your friend has chosen to not share the results of their tests.

Privacy & Other Questions

Why are your personality tests free? What's the catch?
All of our personality tests are 100%, completely free. The personality tests are free because:
  1. We want to help you learn more about psychology and yourself.
  2. By completing personality tests, you're actually helping real psychological researchers better understand people's personalities and relationships.
In other words, the tests are free because your responses are collected, averaged with many other people's responses, and analyzed to help real personality psychologists at major universities learn more about how people function. When you complete personality tests on Personality Assessor, you're not only learning more about yourself, you're also helping scientific research!
Are my responses and results private?
We respect your privacy. Your responses and the results of your personality tests are always as private as you want them to be.
  • We never use your responses for commercial purposes
  • We never share your responses with non-academic third parties
  • We do use your responses for academic research purposes. However, whenever your responses are used for research, they are always 100% anonymous. This means that the researchers see none of your personal information. They do not see your name, your email address, your Personality Assessor account, or any other identifying information.
Of course, you can always share your results pages with other people. If you choose to share your results pages with other people (including on social media websites), we can't control how other people might use your results pages.
What does it mean that you collect my responses for research purposes?
Personality Assessor is owned and operated by Nathan W. Hudson, a personality/social psychologist. Hudson's research focuses on adult attachment—how people form close relationships in adulthood—and personality development—how people's personalities change over time.

Hudson and his colleagues use the data collected on Personality Assessor to understand general patterns in people's personalities and relationships. For example, in one of our most popular assessments, What Do You Look for in Relationships, Hudson and his colleague, R. Chris Fraley, found that people with higher levels of attachment anxiety tended to (1) require more time, attention, and affection in order to call a relationship "close", and (2) perceive less closeness when reading short stories about other people's relationships.

As this example demonstrates, when used for research purposes, your individual responses are averaged with many other people's responses so that researchers can look for broad patterns in the data. Your individual responses are not linked directly to you, nor are researchers interested in building a profile of you, personally. Rather, researchers are interested in understanding people in general.
Why do assessments ask about my age, race/ethnicity, gender, country, etc.?
Most of our assessments ask you about basic demographics, including your age, race/ethnicity, gender, and country of origin and/or residence. This type of information is collected so that scientific researchers can appropriately interpret their claims.

For example, if an assessment is mostly completed by Americans, scientific researchers cannot be sure whether the results would apply to people in other countries. Thus, by collecting basic demographic data, scientific researchers can know to whom the results will likely apply.

Please remember that, when used for academic research purposes, your results are completely anonymous. As part of Personality Assessor's commitment to privacy, any potentially identifying combination of demographics (e.g., gender, sexuality, birth month and year, state) will never be published in scientific databases or shared with non-academic third parties. Please do note that individual demographic variables that are not personally-identifying (e.g., gender alone) may be published in scientific databases.
Does "open science" mean that other people can see my responses?
As described in our Privacy Policy, your responses will be stripped of any potentially identifying information and may be posted to scientific data repositories so that other scientific researchers can verify any findings published in academic journals.

In such a scenario, your responses will be stripped of all potentially identifying data, including birthday and text typed into free-response fields. As always, when your responses are used for academic research purposes, your name, email address, Personality Assessor account, or any other identifying information is never revealed to researchers. Thus, you can be assured that—when your responses are used for academic research purposes—they are 100% anonymous and cannot be linked to you in any way, shape, or form.

Still Have Questions?

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