The four percentages on a result are not measured directly. What the test measures is eight properties of behaviour, twenty statements each. This page says what every one of them means, what both of its ends look like in a life, and which of them the formula actually uses.
01Every scale has two normal ends. Neither end is a fault, and no level here is a score to improve.
02Six of the eight go into the four percentages. Two are measured and reported without entering the formula.
03This page is about the scales themselves. What your own level means for you is read on your result.
The eight scales in two groups: three feed activation, three feed stability, and two stand outside the formula.
What a scale is here
Before the eight, three things that are true of all of them and save a lot of misreading.
01
The words at the ends are names, not grades
Each scale carries two labels, one at each end. Unhurried and fast-moving, self-contained and outgoing: both describe a normal way to work and live. Neither is the good end. The cost and the advantage sit at both.
02
A level is a position, not a rank
The number next to a scale says where you sit on this test's own scale, not how you compare with other people. We do not show percentiles, because honest norms need more completed and validated results than we have.
03
Six of eight make the formula
Energy, sociability and tempo make up activation. Recovery, reactivity and sensitivity make up stability, the last two counted in reverse. Flexibility and persistence are measured, reported and used in reading, but they do not enter the four percentages.
Each scale rests on twenty statements, which is why a single careless answer moves a level very little and a whole careless sitting moves it a lot.
Each section says what the scale measures, what both ends look like in an ordinary week, where it goes in the model, and the misreading it attracts.
01
Energy
How much activity a day asks of you, and how long you can hold that level without paying for it later.
Measured
The lower end runs from a measured supply and spends it deliberately. One thing at a time, few starts in a week, and a real cost to the weeks other people call full. Little effort goes into activity that leads nowhere.
Active
The upper end runs at a high idle and feels it most when there is nothing to push against. Several things at once, easy starts, and a week that fills itself. The cost is stopping: an empty evening can feel like a problem to solve.
Where you see it
It shows up in how many things you begin in a week, and in what a fully booked Saturday feels like the moment you look at it. Fuel or debt, before anything has actually happened.
In the model
Goes into activation, together with sociability and tempo.
What it is not
This is not energy in the medical sense. A low level is not fatigue, not a deficiency and not a symptom, and this test says nothing about your health.
02
Sociability
How much contact with people you look for, and how much of your strength that contact takes.
Self-contained
The lower end is self-contained. Company is chosen rather than needed, a long stretch alone restores rather than drains, and a small number of close people covers most of what other people get from a crowd.
Outgoing
The upper end goes looking for people and gets its charge from them. A room of strangers is an opportunity rather than a task, and a silent week costs more than a busy one.
Where you see it
It shows up in what an unplanned evening with six people does to you, and in whether you answer a message the same hour or wait for a stretch when talking is cheap.
In the model
Goes into activation, together with energy and tempo.
What it is not
We do not hand out the labels introvert and extravert as a verdict. This is one scale out of eight, and it says nothing about how much you like people or how well you get along with them.
03
Tempo
The speed of your speech, your movements and your ordinary decisions, when nothing is forcing the pace.
Unhurried
The lower end is unhurried. Sentences finish before the next one starts, a decision waits for a second look, and work goes at a rate that does not need correcting afterwards.
Fast-moving
The upper end moves fast, talks fast and decides fast. It gets to a first version quickly, which also means arriving at the wrong version quickly and having to turn around.
Where you see it
It shows up in how long it takes you to choose lunch, how fast you walk to a meeting you are not late for, and how quickly you send a reply that could have waited.
In the model
Goes into activation, together with energy and sociability.
What it is not
This is not intelligence and not the speed of thought. Fast speech is not quick understanding, and an unhurried tempo is not slow wits.
04
Flexibility
How easily you change plans, habits and the familiar way of doing something once it is already running.
Consistent
The lower end is consistent. A method that works is kept, a plan made on Monday is still the plan on Thursday, and the people around you can predict what you will do.
Adaptable
The upper end changes course without much friction. A cancelled meeting is an opening rather than a loss, and a new tool gets tried rather than resisted.
Where you see it
It shows up on the day the plan collapses at eleven in the morning: how much of the day is spent rebuilding it, and how much is spent being annoyed that it collapsed.
In the model
Measured and reported, but not part of the four percentages.
What it is not
Flexible is not the praise here and consistent is not the complaint. Constant course changes cost the people around you, and a kept method is what makes anything finish.
05
Reactivity
How strongly and how quickly feeling rises in you, and how visible it is from the outside.
Unruffled
The lower end is unruffled. The first minute of bad news looks the same as the minute before it, which makes you useful in a crisis and occasionally unreadable to people who need a reaction.
Responsive
The upper end responds fast and visibly. Good news lands as good news and bad news lands as bad news, in the room, immediately. People always know where they stand with you.
Where you see it
It shows up in the first minute after something goes wrong, not in the hour after. What your face does before you have decided what to think.
In the model
Goes into stability, counted in reverse: higher reactivity means lower stability.
What it is not
This is not an emotional disorder and not a measure of maturity. A high level is not instability, and a low one is not coldness.
06
Recovery
How quickly you come back to your ordinary state after a hard stretch, once the hard stretch is over.
Slow to reset
The lower end resets slowly. A heavy week is still present in the following one, and the way back takes real days rather than one good night. Knowing this is what makes the calendar plannable.
Resilient
The upper end resets fast. A weekend does most of the work, and the next week starts from something close to zero, which is why long strain can pass unnoticed until it is large.
Where you see it
It shows up on the Monday after the week you would rather not repeat: whether you are back, or still carrying it.
In the model
Goes into stability, together with reactivity and sensitivity.
What it is not
This is not burnout as a diagnosis. Slow recovery is a property, not a condition, and no level here is a reason to look for treatment.
07
Sensitivity
The level of noise, light, tone or detail at which you begin to respond at all.
Steady in noise
The lower end is steady in noise. An open office is background, a sharp message is just a message, and the details that others catch simply do not arrive.
Finely tuned
The upper end is finely tuned. The tone under the words arrives before the words do, and so does the flicker in the light and the noise from the corridor. Nothing is filtered out for free.
Where you see it
It shows up in whether you notice that someone in the room is upset before they say anything, and in what an open-plan office costs you by four in the afternoon.
In the model
Goes into stability, counted in reverse: higher sensitivity means lower stability.
What it is not
This is not the highly sensitive person as a separate kind of human being. That is a different concept with its own literature, and one scale out of eight is not a membership card.
08
Persistence
How long you keep effort on one task after it has stopped being interesting.
Quick to switch
The lower end switches early. Attention goes where the work is alive, which starts a lot and finishes what still matters by the end, with the rest quietly dropped.
Enduring
The upper end stays. The third week of a project looks like the first, and the thing gets finished. The cost is the sunk one: staying is easier than admitting that the task no longer deserves the time.
Where you see it
It shows up in the third week of anything, not the first. Interest is not the test, the flat middle is.
In the model
Measured and reported, but not part of the four percentages.
What it is not
This is not willpower and not a moral quality. Switching early is not weakness, and staying is not virtue: they cost different things in different jobs.
Low, middle and high
Every scale is reported in the same three bands, and the bands mean the same thing everywhere on the result.
Low, under 30
Middle, from 30 to 70
High, above 70
Low, under 30
The property is pronounced at the lower end. That is a pole, not a shortage: it is the column above, read as a stable feature rather than a lack of something.
Middle, from 30 to 70
The widest band and the most common place to land. The property does not pull you in either direction, which is information about you rather than a gap in the measurement.
High, above 70
The property is pronounced at the upper end. It says the trait is easy to see in you, and it does not say that it is good.
What your own level means for you, in your own areas of life, is the part that comes with the paid analysis: the library reads all eight scales at your levels. This page is deliberately the other half, the same for everybody, so that the scales can be understood without buying anything.
Three moves that turn a name on a chart into something you can act on.
01
Watch one scale for three days
Take the one that describes you least comfortably and look for it in ordinary situations. Agreeing on the page means little; catching it on a Tuesday afternoon means a lot.
02
Change the environment before the trait
A high tempo with slow recovery does not need a faster recovery. It needs fewer sharp starts in a week. Almost every difficult combination is cheaper to solve in the calendar than in yourself.
03
Name the pole out loud to one person
Most friction at work is two people with different levels on the same scale, each assuming the other is being difficult on purpose. The scale gives that difference a name that is not an accusation.
Three limits that hold for every scale on this page.
They do not measure ability
Every scale describes a manner of behaviour, not a ceiling on it. People at both ends of every one of these eight do every kind of work well, at different costs to themselves.
They are not clinical
None of these eight is a symptom, and no level on any of them is a condition. If something in your life feels beyond your control, a questionnaire is not the tool for it.
They do not predict a single moment
A scale describes a tendency across many days. Any given evening can look like the opposite of your level, and that is normal rather than a contradiction.
Frequent questions
01
Why eight scales and not five, like the well-known model?
Because these eight are the properties that the four temperaments are actually built from, and the formula needs exactly six of them. The other well-known model answers a different question and was built for a different purpose. We do not translate our numbers into its numbers, and we do not claim they line up.
02
Which scale matters most?
The one furthest from the middle in your own result, whichever it happens to be. That is the property other people notice about you first, and the one that costs you most when your environment works against it. There is no scale that is more important for everyone.
03
Can a scale change over a life?
Slowly, and less than people expect. Levels move a few points between two sittings a year apart, and the shape of the eight usually stays. Bigger moves are worth a second look for a plain reason: a real change in circumstances and answering in an unusual week look identical in the numbers.
04
Why are flexibility and persistence measured if they are not in the formula?
Because they explain a lot of what the four percentages cannot. Two people with the same leading type and the same formula can differ completely on those two, and that difference shows up in how they finish work and how they handle a changed plan. Reporting them and being honest about their place is better than either hiding them or pretending they feed the types.
05
Where do I see my own level on each scale?
On your result, free, right under the formula: all eight with their levels and pole names, plus what stands out and what argues. The paid analysis adds the reading of each level for your own life rather than any new measurement.
Your own eight numbers take about twenty minutes
Everything above is the same for everyone. What it applies to is not: eight levels that belong to one person, plus the formula built from six of them. The result is free.