About the test
Character strengths test
Find out which of the 24 character strengths in Peterson and Seligman’s classification stand out in your own profile, from curiosity and kindness to bravery and humor. The free test uses the public-domain IPIP-VIA-R scales and ranks the strengths within your answers.
Questionnaire / instrument: IPIP-VIA-R
The test at a glance
- Price
- Free, including your results
- Registration
- No account required
- Length
- 96 statements
- Time
- About 12 minutes
- Format
- Self-report · five response options
- Your report
- Top five of 24 strengths
24 strengths in six virtues
The report groups the strengths under the six virtues in Peterson and Seligman’s classification. Each strength is measured with four statements.
Wisdom
Strengths of the mind: creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning and perspective.
Courage
Strengths of will: bravery, perseverance, honesty and zest.
Humanity
Strengths in close relationships: love, kindness and social intelligence.
Justice
Strengths in groups and communities: teamwork, fairness and leadership.
Temperance
Strengths that protect against excess: forgiveness, humility, prudence and self-regulation.
Transcendence
Strengths that connect you to something larger: appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor and spirituality.
What your results show
Your result is calculated as soon as you finish. You can preview an example report before taking the test.
- Your five signature strengths, the highest scores in your profile, with ideas for using each one.
- All 24 strengths grouped under the six virtues, each with a score from 0 to 100 and its rank in your profile.
- Your three least prominent strengths, with a reminder that they are not weaknesses.
What does it measure?
Twenty-four character strengths, including curiosity, perseverance, kindness, fairness, gratitude and humour. The profile explores qualities you recognize in your own behaviour and may want to use more deliberately.
Where does it come from?
The IPIP-VIA-R scales were developed by Bluemke and colleagues using Peterson and Seligman’s classification of character strengths. The 96-item measure and scoring key are published through IPIP.
How is the result calculated?
Four items contribute to each strength, two keyed positively and two negatively. Their adjusted average forms the strength score, shown from 0 to 100 on the answer scale. The strengths are ranked within your own profile; no norms are used.
What can the result tell you?
The ordering is a comparison within your responses, not proof that you are better than other people at a strength. This questionnaire is not affiliated with the VIA Institute on Character and is not its proprietary survey.
Languages and adaptations
English follows the source instrument. Our other language versions include AI-assisted translations that have not been independently validated. Our explanations and result commentary are written for this website.
Frequently asked questions
Is the test free, including the results?
Yes. You can answer all the statements and read your full report without paying or creating an account.
Is this the VIA Survey?
No. The VIA Survey belongs to the VIA Institute on Character. We use the IPIP-VIA-R, public-domain scales by Bluemke and colleagues (2021) that measure the same 24 strengths from Peterson and Seligman’s classification. Results from the two questionnaires cannot be compared directly.
What are signature strengths?
Your five highest-scoring strengths. They are often the qualities that feel most natural and energising to use. Research suggests that using your top strengths in new ways is linked to greater well-being.
Does a low-ranked strength mean I am bad at it?
No. Everyone has all 24 strengths to some degree. A lower rank only means the strength is less central to how you usually act than your other strengths, and you can still draw on it when you need to.
Who am I compared with?
No one. Scores are shown from 0 to 100 on the answer scale, and the ranking compares your own strengths with each other. A score of 80 means you mostly agreed that the statements describe you, not that you scored higher than 80 percent of people.
How accurate is it?
The IPIP-VIA-R scales were developed to be short and comparable across countries. In the developers’ samples from Germany and the UK, reliability (omega) ranged from about .57 to .83, averaging .75, and test–retest stability over two to three weeks from .53 to .84. That is reasonable for short scales, but small differences between strengths are not meaningful. Our translations have not been validated.
How is it different from the Big Five test?
Character strengths are related to the Big Five personality traits but describe more specific, positively valued qualities. The Big Five test gives a broader personality profile and compares you with other people.
License and reuse
Public domainIPIP places its items and scales in the public domain. They may be used, copied, adapted and translated for commercial and non-commercial purposes without a fee or separate permission.
The terms below apply to the test materials. Articles, translations, software and our result descriptions may have separate terms.
Sources and further reading
Bluemke, M., Partsch, M. V., Saucier, G., & Lechner, C. M. (2021). Human character in the IPIP: Towards shorter, more content-valid, and cross-culturally comparable IPIP-VIA character strength scales. PsyArXiv. doi:10.31234/osf.io/k79qf