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The science · Method and sources

How each Nomigram assessment is made

Each assessment names the published source for its questions, marks questions we wrote ourselves, states its scoring rules, and identifies its comparison group when one exists, or says when no group is used. This page follows that chain for each Nomigram assessment in turn, from answers to scores, reports, and limits.

Take the Personality Type assessment Start the Career assessment
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  • .84mean α

    Internal consistency

    The International Personality Item Pool’s published figure covers its original 50 statements, with ten statements per trait. It belongs to Personality Type alone, and our reworded statements have not been measured on their own.

  • .74–.81α range

    Interest consistency

    O*NET’s published range covers interest activities across its areas. It comes from a study of 575 U.S. adults and belongs to Career alone.

  • 596,850Respondents

    Comparison sample

    These respondents answered the original wording of the personality statements online. This group belongs to Personality Type alone.

  • 21Studies

    Personality write-ups

    21 studies cited. We read 4 in full and 17 as abstracts only.

The model

Nomigram has separate assessments, each built on published research, and each gives you its own result and its own full report. Personality Type measures five continuous traits with 50 statements, ten for each trait. Four of those five traits provide the four letters, while Emotional stability is reported on its own. Answers become scores through stated rules, and the report for that assessment explains what those scores can and cannot tell you. The assessments remain separate, so their results are not combined.

Personality Type · Personality50 statements

What you’re like

Statements about your usual patterns. You answer each one on a five-point scale, from Very Inaccurate to Very Accurate.

Comes from
Public-domain personality statements from the International Personality Item Pool, reworded by us
Gives you
Five personality traits, each compared with a named reference group, plus a four-letter type
Career · Interests30 activities

The kinds of work you’re drawn to

Short descriptions of work activities. You answer each one from Strongly dislike to Strongly like.

Comes from
The O*NET Interest Profiler, word for word
Gives you
A three-letter interest code and one of 30 interest types
Five pillars51 questions

How life is going now

For each of five parts of life, you answer how it is going and how much it matters to you right now.

Comes from
ONS, CDC, CFPB, NIOSH and the International Personality Item Pool sources, plus some questions of our own that have not been validated yet
Gives you
Five pillars asks how five parts of your life are going and how much each matters to you. The widest gap points to the part where your attention would do the most good right now.

From answers to scores

  1. 50 statements, ten per trait

    You answer each one with the International Personality Item Pool’s five options, which ask how accurately the statement describes you. Think about your usual pattern, not your best day, worst day, or the person you feel you ought to be.

  2. A five-point response is turned into a raw scale score

    Each trait score is the average of its ten answers. Some statements point the other way, so agreeing with them means less of the trait. We flip those 24 before averaging. A report needs all 50 answers, and we never fill in or guess a missing one.

  3. Raw scores become percentiles against the comparison sample

    Example numbers Higher than 75% of the 596,850 people who answered the original version of these statements online (2016–2018).

    On a report, every comparison is written out in full like this, including who you’re being compared with. We never cut it down to just “higher than 75%.”

  4. Letters are read off the percentiles, with the margin shown

    Each letter also gets a label for how far from the middle it landed. Within 5 points, it’s marked “Nearly a tie.” At 25 points or more, it’s “Strong.” Anything in between is “Moderate.” This matters because a letter near the middle should be read as a mild preference, not a firm dividing line. Two people can receive the same letter while differing substantially in how strongly it shows up.

Blank cards spread in a curve, with three cards in a separate stack

Reliability and validity

This table shows coefficient alpha, which describes how consistently the items in a scale agree, along with how the personality scales line up with an older set of markers. It covers Personality Type and Career, and the figures come from the publishers’ reports for the original wording. We have not yet measured our reworded personality statements separately, and each other assessment’s source is named in the table above.

ScaleαGoldberg markers
Personality Type original items, International Personality Item Pool published figures
Extraversion.87.73
Agreeableness.82.54
Conscientiousness.79.71
Emotional stability.86.72
Openness.84.67
Career interest activities, O*NET published figures
Realistic.81
Investigative.80
Artistic.81
Social.79
Enterprising.74
Conventional.79

These figures come from the International Personality Item Pool’s published table for its 10-item scales. The correlations are uncorrected, and the pool calls the scale we call Openness Intellect. They describe the original wording, not our reworded statements. Learn more (opens another site)

These figures come from the O*NET report that built the Mini Interest Profiler, by Rounds and colleagues in 2016, using 575 U.S. adults recruited online. The first letter from the 30 activities matched the longer 60-item version with a kappa of .73. Learn more (opens another site)

Questions and comparison groups

Each assessment is scored on its own from its own questions, and the table below names the source for every one. The comparison groups are separate groups of people who answered separate questionnaires, so they are never added together and no single group stands for the site.

Assessment Length Question source Compared with
Personality Type 50 statements These statements come from public-domain statements for five broad traits from the International Personality Item Pool, rewritten here in our own words.

Learn more (opens another site)

 596,850 people answered the original wording of the statements online, and this assessment’s scores are placed against that group.

Open-Source Psychometrics IPIP-FFM, 2016–2018 Learn more (opens another site)
Personality Facets 120 statements These statements come from a public-domain inventory measuring 30 personality facets, with the items reworded here in our own words.

Johnson, J. A. (2014). Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. Learn more (opens another site)

 Scores are compared with 320,128 U.S. adults who took the original statements online, using the group’s average and typical range for each facet and trait. Results are not shown as percentiles.

Kajonius, P. J., & Johnson, J. A. (2019). Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 15(2), 260–275, Table A1. Learn more (opens another site)
Career 30 activities These activities come from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mini Interest Profiler, used word for word with its own answer scale and scoring.

O*NET Mini Interest Profiler (Mini-IP): Rounds, J., Wee, C. J. M., Cao, M., Song, C., & Lewis, P. (2016). Development of an O*NET Mini Interest Profiler (Mini-IP) for mobile devices: psychometric characteristics. National Center for O*NET Development. Learn more (opens another site)

 This assessment is compared with no group. The six interest scores are read against each other, showing which interests are strongest for you rather than your rank among other people.
Five pillars 51 questions Sources include the UK Office for National Statistics, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the International Personality Item Pool. Other questions are ours and are labeled as ours wherever their numbers appear. There is no single comparison group. Published survey figures appear beside some answers, labeled by who was asked, where and when, while our questions have no such figure.
Work styles 40 statements These statements come from public-domain versions of four published scales, asked here in our own wording.

DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 880–896. Table 5. Learn more (opens another site)

 Your Work styles scores are compared with the 480 adults in a community sample from Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, who answered the statements by mail between 1994 and 2002. The group’s answers provide each scale’s average, show whether your score is above, close to, or below that average, and provide the percentile.
Self-esteem 10 statements These statements come from Rosenberg’s public-domain self-esteem scale, used word for word.

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

 Scores are placed against 2,782 people in the United States who answered the same scale in a published study.

Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). Simultaneous administration of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in 53 nations: Exploring the universal and culture-specific features of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 623–642.
Personality and Character 240 statements These statements come from public-domain scales for six traits in the International Personality Item Pool, asked here in our own wording.

Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The IPIP-HEXACO scales: An alternative, public-domain measure of the personality constructs in the HEXACO model. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1515-1526. Table 1. Learn more (opens another site)

 Your Personality and Character scores are compared with 460 adults of the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample in Oregon who answered all 240 statements by mail between 1994 and 2003. The group’s answers provide each scale’s average and typical range, and provide the percentile for each score.

Reference group for Personality Type

We compare your average with the 596,850 people who answered the original version of these statements online (2016–2018). “Higher than 75%” means three in four of those people scored lower than you. Land close to that group’s average (within half a standard deviation, for the stats fans) and we call your score typical. Further out? You get the label for your end, like “more outgoing” or “more reserved.” These labels describe the score’s place against this comparison group, not a permanent limit on how you can think or behave.

The people in that group chose to take a personality assessment on the internet, so they don’t stand in for any whole population. They also picked from agree–disagree answers instead of the accuracy options used here, and they read the original wording, not ours. So treat the comparison as a useful reference point, not a verdict about who you are. The score is most helpful when you use it to notice patterns, then check those patterns against your actual choices and relationships.

Common questions

Can my type change?

A letter labeled Nearly a tie can flip on a retake because the score is close to the midpoint, so a small difference in the answers puts it on the other side. A Strong letter is less likely to flip. We have not measured how stable our reworded statements are over time, so we do not give a retest figure. Interest preferences tend to settle during the college years, roughly from 18 to 22.

How accurate is it?

For a questionnaire, accuracy means reliability and validity, which ask whether results are consistent and whether they support the meaning assigned to them. The published figures above show personality scale alphas from .79 to .87 and interest-area alphas from .74 to .81, but they describe the original personality wording and the O*NET version. Our reworded personality statements have not been tested on their own yet. A report from any of these assessments is a structured description of how someone described themselves on that assessment, not a complete measure of a person.

What happens to my answers?

We keep your personal information private and never sell it, while anything that identifies you goes only to the companies needed to run the site and take a payment. To delete your account and everything saved in it, email us at hello@nomigram.com from the account’s own address.

Read the privacy page

Can I use this for hiring?

No. Nothing here was built or checked for choosing, promoting, or screening out people. The assessment also measures no ability, intelligence, or employability.

Where do the statements come from?

Each assessment uses a published instrument, except for some pillar check-in questions we wrote ourselves. The method page lists every instrument, its authors, year, and full citation. Most published items use our rewording of public-domain material rather than the originals, so no published reliability figure describes the wording you answer. The interest activities and self-esteem statements appear exactly as published, word for word, while our questions are labeled as ours wherever their numbers appear.

Desk by a window at dusk with a lit lamp, open book, open laptop, and cup of tea

What it cannot tell you

A report from any one of these assessments describes how someone answered that assessment’s questions on one occasion. It is not a clinical instrument, does not diagnose any condition, and should not be used on its own to hire, promote, or exclude anyone. Scores near the midpoint remain near the midpoint, so the report marks that closeness rather than rounding it away.

What this can tell you

Which kinds of work you’re drawn to, the order of those interests, and how your personality traits read alongside them.

What it can’t

How good you’d be at something, whether you’d succeed or be happy in a particular job, or what you should do. Interests predict performance and satisfaction only in part[6][8].

If you’re in your teens or early twenties

Your interests may still be settling. They tend to become much more stable through the college years[7], so a result taken a year from now may look different.

Scores can change

Answer on a different day or in a different mood, and some scores will move. Your interest code is the part to take seriously; small differences between scores usually aren’t.

What this isn’tNomigram asks you to describe yourself; it does not watch you, test your abilities directly, or know the circumstances behind each answer. It is not a clinical evaluation, an intelligence measure, an employability rating, or a forecast of your future. A score can help you notice preferences, tensions, and patterns worth exploring, but it cannot decide whether you should take a job, stay in a relationship, spend money, or change your life. Use it for reflection and better questions—not for hiring, diagnosis, or reducing another person to a report.

Now see what the method says about you.

Answer 50 short statements in the Personality Type assessment for scores on five traits and a four-letter type. Rate 30 work activities in the Career assessment for an interest type and interest code.

Take the Personality Type assessment Start the Career assessment

The questions

Nomigram has seven assessments. Personality Type measures five broad traits that include how outgoing, cooperative, organized, emotionally steady, and open to new ideas you tend to be. Career measures the kinds of work you’re drawn to. Personality and interests are kept separate because they answer different questions and only partly overlap: for most pairings, knowing one tells you little about the other[4].

A single answer rarely says much on its own because each score comes from all the questions in that assessment taken together.

The personality statements

The 50 statements are our own take on public-domain personality statements from the International Personality Item Pool, a public-domain collection. The originals were written for researchers in 1992, and some sound like they were written for a filing cabinet rather than a person. Imagine opening an assessment with “Am the life of the party.” and trying to decide how accurately that describes your ordinary Tuesday.

We rewrote the wording without changing what the item measures. Each statement keeps its original trait, direction, and place in the sequence, so it is scored exactly the same way. That distinction matters: clearer language should make a question easier to understand, not quietly change the personality pattern behind it.

The interest questions

The 30 activities come from the O*NET Interest Profiler, a free career tool from the U.S. Department of Labor. We use its short version, the Mini Interest Profiler, word for word. That’s five activities for each of psychologist John Holland’s six interests, with O*NET’s own answer scale and scoring. The report describes the kinds of activities that catch your attention; it does not decide which jobs you can do, which jobs are available, or what you should choose.

A few of them show their age, and Operate a calculator is one. We still use every activity exactly as O*NET wrote it, because O*NET’s terms call for a validation study before anyone releases a changed version. That is a real limitation: familiar wording can be easier to answer, but changing an item casually could make the score look comparable while measuring something different.

How scoring works

Sometimes the answers themselves are hard to read, like a long run of the same answer, or agreeing with two statements that say opposite things. When that happens, the report says so and suggests a second look. It doesn’t change any score. The warning is there because a precise-looking number should not hide an answer pattern that deserves your attention.

Example numbers

Extraversion

Higher than 75% of the 596,850 people who answered the original version of these statements online (2016–2018).

Your four-letter type

Your four-letter type (think ISFJ) needs no extra questions. We work the letters out from four of your five trait scores, following McCrae and Costa’s finding that the four scales behind the letters line up with four of the five traits[10]. Their abstract—the study’s published summary—doesn’t say exactly which trait belongs with which letter. The pairing shown here is our own reading of that research, so the letters are a compact translation of the scores you already have, not a separate measurement with its own evidence or precision.

Each letter comes from one score that runs by degrees from one end to the other, and the letter tells you which side of the middle the score fell on. The letters describe tendencies, so they do not put you in a box. When researchers compared four-letter codes with the five traits, they found that people spread out along each scale by degrees instead of separating into distinct types. A result close to the midpoint may be especially worth noticing because it can give you access to both sides, depending on the setting, the people involved, or what the moment requires.
LettersWorked out from
  • IE Introversion or Extraversion Extraversion
  • SN Sensing or Intuition Openness
  • TF Thinking or Feeling Agreeableness
  • PJ Perceiving or Judging Conscientiousness
  • Not usedEmotional stability

Your interest code and type

  1. Six scores

    Each interest’s five answers (0 to 4) get added up, then shown on a scale from 0 to 100. Your six scores are only compared with each other, since there isn’t a comparison group for interests yet. A high score means that interest stands out more in your own pattern; it does not mean you are objectively more interested than everyone else, or that the interest is automatically a good career fit.

  2. Three letters

    Your three highest interests, in order, make your interest code. The first two make your interest type. Six interests, each with five possible second letters, give you 30 types. The code is a shorthand for the form of your interests: the first letters count the most, while the full pattern can show combinations that a single interest label would miss.

  3. Ties stay ties

    This rule is ours, not Holland’s. Letters count as tied when their scores step down 5 points or less at a time, even if the first and last end up further apart. When that happens, the report names every type the tie allows and doesn’t pick one for you. That is deliberate: a close report contains less information than a clearly ordered one, and pretending otherwise would make the code look more certain than your answers are.

How clear your report is

This is the gap between your highest and lowest interest. It describes your report. It doesn’t predict how easily you’ll make a decision[2]. A wide gap means your interests are more concentrated in some areas than others. A narrow gap means several areas are close, so your report leaves more room for exploration. Neither pattern is better: clarity can help you narrow options, while breadth can help you notice more than one satisfying direction.

  • Broadunder 20Lots of kinds of work appeal to you about equally.
  • Moderate20–39You have favorites, but several kinds of work appeal to you. You may be choosing less between completely different paths and more between different ways of using the same underlying interests.
  • Clear40 or moreA few kinds of work stand clearly above the rest for you. That usually means your interests can give you a useful direction, even if they do not name one perfect job.

Example numbers

Highest interest82
Lowest interest22

Gap of 60 points Clear

How your top two interests relate

Holland arranged the six areas in a hexagon, with the ones he saw as most alike next to each other. The map describes relationships among interest themes, not fixed personality categories. Your top two can be neighbors, separated by one area, or opposites—and an unusual combination is still a real combination, not a mistake.

  • RIASEC

    Side by side on the hexagon · 12 types

    The closest pairs, with plenty in common.

    RIRCIRIAAIAS

  • RIASEC

    One type between them on the hexagon · 12 types

    Another family sits between them. Related, with some differences.

    RAREISICARAE

  • RIASEC

    Across from each other on the hexagon · 6 types

    The least alike, in Holland’s view. Few of the occupations O*NET lists lead with both[1], but plenty of people like both anyway[9].

    RSIEACSREICA

Holland thought interests that sit side by side on the hexagon tend to fit together most naturally. The research behind that idea is mixed[2], so the arrangement is best used to describe the shape of your interests—not to forecast a career or tell you what will fit. Sometimes neighboring interests point to an easy blend; sometimes the tension between them is the more useful clue.

The six interests RRealisticIInvestigativeAArtisticSSocialEEnterprisingCConventional

What the research supports

We separate research from our interpretation so you can tell what a report is built on. Our sources include O*NET’s licensed interest questions and occupation descriptions, Holland’s original theory, public-domain personality items, and published studies and open data used for comparison. We read each cited source at least as far as its abstract, and read the sources identified as full-text readings in full. When evidence is mixed, limited, or smaller than a popular explanation suggests, we say so. The rules that turn scores into letters, names, explanations, and experiments are Nomigram’s own written rules: they are run by code, not invented by an AI looking at your report. They can make a report clearer, but they cannot make a weak measure strong or tell you what you should do.

Well supported

  • Holland’s six broad interests show a recurring structure: both people and kinds of work tend to arrange around them in the order of the hexagon[2]. That structure is useful for describing patterns, not for assigning a permanent identity.
  • Interests relate to performance and persistence in work and education. A person’s match with the setting tends to add information beyond interest scores alone[5]. Interest can point toward a promising environment, but it is only one part of doing well and staying engaged.
  • Across 92 studies, the match between people’s interests and their work had a stronger relationship with performance than interest scores alone: correlations were 0.32 and 0.16, respectively[6]. That is a real but moderate relationship. Fit matters, but it does not settle ability, opportunity, working conditions, or the outcome of a particular choice.
  • Interests become considerably more stable during the college years, roughly from 18 to 22, and remain relatively stable over the following two decades[7]. Stability is not the same as permanence: interests can still change with experience, circumstances, and the roles a person tries.

Supported, but smaller than people assume

  • A match between interests and work also predicts job satisfaction, but only modestly. Across 105 studies, the correlation was 0.19, which the authors called “slightly lower than expected”[8].
  • A review of Holland’s theory says fit overall “appears to have modest predictive power”[2].

Mixed, or not supported

  • Holland proposed two additional ideas: whether your leading interests sit next to each other on the hexagon, and how clearly your leading interests stand out. Both receive mixed support[2]. We may describe these patterns, but we do not use them to make predictions.
  • Interests on opposite sides of the hexagon are not true opposites. Many people are drawn to both working with people and working with things[9]. A two-sided report may be a useful combination, not an inconsistency to resolve.
  • Four-letter codes are better understood as four sliding scales than as a set of sharply separate types[10]. When a score lands near the midpoint, the other letter was nearly as good a fit, and the four-letter code on its own does not show that.

Outside what a report can say

  • Holland’s theory concerns how a person may fit a kind of work. It does not establish how two people will fit together in a relationship, friendship, or team[2].
  • Nothing here measures ability, guarantees success in a particular job, diagnoses a condition, or tells you what you should do. A report can offer language for reflection; the decision still belongs to you.
What you getWhat it rests on
  • Your five trait scores A public-domain personality questionnaire from the International Personality Item Pool, compared with a named reference group. Your result is a percentile, not a fixed category. Research
  • Your four-letter type Calculated from four trait scores. The score-to-letter pairings follow our reading of McCrae and Costa’s study[10]; the cutoff at the midpoint is part of how Nomigram turns scores into letters. Research Our reading
  • Your interest code and type O*NET’s interest questions and Holland’s theory[2]. When scores tie, the tie rule is ours. Research
  • The 30 type names Ours, chosen to make recurring patterns easier to remember. A name is a handle for a pattern, not a box you have to fit inside. Our reading
  • Type guides: what drives each type and how the second letter shows Our own reading, informed by O*NET’s descriptions of each interest[1]. They describe tendencies that are common in a pattern, so no report should be treated as a complete description of you. Our reading
  • Example occupations O*NET’s interest codes for each occupation[1]. They are starting points for investigation, not recommendations or promises of fit. Research
  • Five overlaps between traits and interests Research examines five links between interests and personality[4]. We use those findings where they apply and interpret other pairings separately rather than treating every combination as equally established. Research Our reading
  • With other people Built from O*NET’s descriptions of each interest’s work[1], then labeled as our interpretation on every report. Our reading
  • Blind spots, third-letter lines, and experiments to try Written by us as practical interpretations and ideas to try. They are not research findings or predictions about you. Our reading
The personality reportEach of the five traits also has a chapter for its lower, typical, and higher ranges. Every research claim in those chapters names its study and tells you how much of the source we examined. Across them, we cite 21 studies and read 4 in full. For the other 17, we had only the published abstract, which limits what we can see: an abstract summarizes a study but cannot show us every detail of its methods, measures, or qualifications. That is why the chapters distinguish research from our reading instead of presenting every polished explanation as equally established.

Sources

Research cited in the report10 sources

  1. Source 1: O*NET OnLine, U.S. Department of Labor. Career interest definitions and occupation interest codes. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: Definitions of the six interests, with example occupations and their O*NET codes.

    How far we read it Pages read directly

  2. Source 2: Nauta, M. M. (2010). The development, evolution, and status of Holland’s theory of vocational personalities. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 11–22. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The theory supports six broad interests and the idea that people and work environments can be compared by fit. Research finds mixed support for treating these interests as sharply separate or highly consistent types.

    How far we read it Abstract

  3. Source 3: Holland, J. L. (1997). Making Vocational Choices (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.

    Used for: The original theory behind interest–work fit.

    How far we read it Not read directly. Cited through[2].

  4. Source 4: Larson, L. M., Rottinghaus, P. J., & Borgen, F. H. (2002). Meta-analyses of Big Six interests and Big Five personality factors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 217–239.

    Used for: Research on the overlap between interests and five broad personality traits.

    How far we read it Abstract only. It does not report effect sizes, so we quote none.

  5. Source 5: Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2012). Vocational interests and performance: A quantitative summary of over 60 years of research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 384–403. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: Research linking stronger interest fit with persistence, performance, and staying engaged in a line of work.

    How far we read it Abstract

  6. Source 6: Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2017). Interest congruence and performance: Revisiting recent meta-analytic findings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 98, 138–151.

    Used for: Evidence that interest fit can be related to how people perform at work.

    How far we read it Abstract

  7. Source 7: Low, K. S. D., Yoon, M., Roberts, B. W., & Rounds, J. (2005). The stability of vocational interests from early adolescence to middle adulthood. Psychological Bulletin, 131(5), 713–737. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: Research suggesting that vocational interests tend to become more stable during the college years.

    How far we read it Abstract

  8. Source 8: Hoff, K. A., Song, Q. C., Wee, C. J. M., Phan, W. M. J., & Rounds, J. (2020). Interest fit and job satisfaction: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 123, 103503.

    Used for: Evidence that interest fit can be related to job satisfaction.

    How far we read it Abstract

  9. Source 9: Tay, L., Su, R., & Rounds, J. (2011). People–things and data–ideas: Bipolar dimensions? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 58(3), 424–440. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The six interests are not a single scale from one opposite to another. Someone can be drawn to several kinds of work, or to none of them strongly.

    How far we read it Abstract

  10. Source 10: McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1989). Journal of Personality, 57(1), 17–40. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The four scales behind the letters are separate scales. They overlap with four of the five traits, but they do not establish four distinct personality types.

    How far we read it Abstract (Europe PMC, PMID 2709300)

Questions and comparison data3 sources

  • Source A: International Personality Item Pool (IPIP): the 50-item Big Five factor markers. Public domain. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The personality statements we adapted into clearer, more natural wording

  • Source B: Open-Source Psychometrics IPIP-FFM, 2016–2018 data set, published by Open-Source Psychometrics. 596,850 people, collected 2016–2018. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The open comparison data used to place personality scores against a reference group

  • Source C: O*NET Mini Interest Profiler (Mini-IP): Rounds, J., Wee, C. J. M., Cao, M., Song, C., & Lewis, P. (2016). Development of an O*NET Mini Interest Profiler (Mini-IP) for mobile devices: psychometric characteristics. National Center for O*NET Development. Learn more (opens another site)

    Used for: The interest questions, their answer scale, and the way interest scores are calculated

Studies behind the personality report

21 studies cited. We read 4 in full and 17 as abstracts only.

Credits and licenses

O*NETU.S. Department of Labor

This site includes information from the O*NET Database and the O*NET Career Exploration Tools by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). The Database is used under the CC BY 4.0 license and the Career Exploration Tools under the CC BY-ND 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Nomigram has modified all or some of the Database information: scores are rounded and only some fields are kept. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Interest questions

This page includes information from the O*NET Career Exploration Tools by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY-ND 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.

Occupation data

This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Nomigram has modified all or some of this information: scores are rounded and only some fields are kept. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

O*NET Database license (opens another site) O*NET Career Exploration Tools license (opens another site) CC BY 4.0 (opens another site) CC BY-ND 4.0 (opens another site)

Five pillarsQuestion sources

Personal well-being questions from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Healthy Days and social support questions from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC does not endorse Nomigram.

The sleep question comes from a CDC health survey, as printed in MMWR 65(6), 2016, which is in the public domain. CDC does not endorse Nomigram.

Financial well-being questions and scoring from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB does not endorse Nomigram.

The job satisfaction question comes from the NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ), which is in the public domain. NIOSH does not endorse Nomigram.

Statements adapted from the International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org), which is in the public domain.

Open Government Licence v3.0 (opens another site)

Personality statementsIPIP

Adapted from the International Personality Item Pool, a public-domain collection of questionnaire statements. In the IPIP’s words, “permission has already been automatically granted for any person to use IPIP items, scales, and inventories for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.”

IPIP permission policy (opens another site) The 50 items (opens another site)

Comparison dataOpen-Source Psychometrics

Nomigram works out personality comparisons from the IPIP-FFM data set, published by Open-Source Psychometrics. It covers the 596,850 people who answered the original version of these statements online (2016–2018).

TypefacesSIL Open Font License

DM Sans, Figtree and Source Serif 4, all under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. We serve them from this site instead of a font service.

DM Sans license Source Serif 4 license (roman and italic) Figtree license

Nomigram is independent. It isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Labor, the International Personality Item Pool, or Open-Source Psychometrics.