Glossary

Short, plain-English definitions of the models and terms behind our tests.

• Affection Style

  One of 5 patterns, encouraging words, focused time, helpful actions, thoughtful gifts, or physical affection, describing which everyday gestures register most clearly as care for someone.

• Attachment Style

  One of 4 patterns, secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, or fearful-avoidant, describing how comfortable someone is with closeness and trust in relationships.

• Attachment Theory

  The idea that early bonds with caregivers shape how comfortable someone is with closeness and trust in relationships throughout life.

• Big Five Personality Traits

  The five broad dimensions, Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, used to describe personality in most academic research.

• Enneagram

  A 9-type personality framework describing core motivations and fears, popular for self-reflection rather than clinical use.

• Enneagram Wing

  The type adjacent to your primary Enneagram type that also shapes your personality, without changing your core type.

• Holland Code

  A 3-letter code (like "SIA") showing a person's top three RIASEC vocational interests, used to match people to occupations.

• IPIP (International Personality Item Pool)

  A public-domain library of personality test items researchers can use, translate, and republish for free.

• Jungian Archetypes

  The popular 12-archetype personality framework (Hero, Sage, Creator, and others), based on Carol Pearson's model rather than Carl Jung's own writing directly.

• MBTI

  A trademarked, commercially licensed personality typology (based on Jungian psychological types) that sorts people into 16 four-letter types.

• O*NET

  The U.S. Department of Labor's free, public occupational database, salary, education, tasks, and RIASEC codes for thousands of jobs.

• Personality Trait vs. Personality Type

  A trait is a spectrum you score somewhere on (like the Big Five); a type sorts you into one fixed category (like MBTI-style typology or the Enneagram).

• Psychometrics

  The field of measuring psychological traits, and the standards (reliability and validity) used to judge whether a test actually works.

• RIASEC

  The six vocational-interest categories, Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional, behind the Holland Code model.

• Self-Report Inventory

  A test where you answer questions about your own thoughts, feelings, or behavior, the format used by the Big Five, RIASEC, and most personality tests.

• Strange Situation

  Psychologist Mary Ainsworth's 1970s lab procedure that first documented distinct attachment patterns in young children.

• Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI)

  A 7-dimension personality instrument developed by psychiatrist C. Robert Cloninger, splitting personality into 4 temperament traits and 3 character traits.

• The 5 Love Languages

  A popular framework from relationship counselor Gary Chapman's 1992 book, describing 5 ways people express and experience love: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts, and physical touch.

• True Colors Personality Model

  A 4-color personality system (Orange, Gold, Green, Blue) created by Don Lowry in 1978, adapted from David Keirsey's four temperaments.

• VIA Character Strengths

  A classification of 24 positive personality traits grouped into 6 virtues, measured by the free VIA Survey developed by psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman.

• Vocational Interest

  What kind of work a person finds engaging or enjoyable, distinct from their skills, personality traits, or job market demand.