Types / Personality facets / Keeping promises

A facet inside Conscientiousness

Keeping promises

How firmly you keep your word, tell the truth and follow rules.

What this facet measures

A car waits at a train station in the rain with its lights on, wipers moving, and passenger door unlocked and slightly open.

Whether you hold firmly to commitments, truthfulness, and rules. A lower score means promises and rules feel more flexible depending on the situation.

The two ends

This is one scale with two ends, not two camps. Most people land somewhere between them, and neither end is better. The labels describe different ways of answering the statements.

Treats rules flexibly

People toward this end may weigh an arrangement against changing circumstances, personal priorities, and the practical cost of following through. They can view an agreement or rule as guidance whose meaning depends on the situation.

Stands by promises

People toward this end usually give their word carefully and make a point of doing what they said they would do. Others can rely on their consistency in private and public matters. That steadiness can become rigid when circumstances change, making an old agreement harder to revise than the situation requires.

See where all 30 land

Answer 120 short statements for a reading across all 30 facets, with each scale explained in plain English.

Questions

Is a low score a bad score?

No. Each end comes with something that helps and something that gets in the way. Some scale names sound like faults in everyday English, but an end label describes what the statements asked about, not a grade.

What if this part disagrees with its trait?

It happens often, and it’s the reason these 30 facets exist. A broad score is an average of six parts, so one part can point the other way. Nothing is wrong when a facet and its broad trait don’t match perfectly.

Who is this score compared with?

A score is compared with 320,128 U.S. adults who answered the original statements online during the roughly 12 years before 2014. Their published average and spread provide a typical range for the facet, showing how the score compares with that group.