The Sixteen Personality Questionnaire (16PF)

What is the 16PF?

The 16PF is a personality questionnaire that provides information about a person’s style and behaviour in a variety of situations, revealing potential as well as an indication of possible developmental needs.  The 16PF is one of only a few non-ability psychometric questionnaires recommended for use in recruitment and selection as it provides a rounded view of an individual and a ‘full picture’.  The 16PF is also an excellent tool when used to assess development potential as it enables the participant to achieve personal insight into their own strengths, as well as their potential and career fit.

Objectivity of the 16PF

With over 50 years of research, the 16PF has become internationally well known and respected and is available in over 20 different languages.  As an empirically based questionnaire, the 16PF can be used successfully in recruitment as it helps remove subjectivity inherent in an interview or assessment process enabling fairness as well as increasing the likelihood of selecting the best person for the role.

What does the 16PF measure?

The 16PF provides insight and feedback on the 16 personality factors shown on the left hand side of the chart below.  Summary descriptors are of each of the 16 factors is shown on the right.

Factor	Summary Descriptors
Warmth	Emotionally distant	Attentive and warm towards others
Emotional Stability	Reactive, changeable	Emotionally stable, adaptive
Dominance	Deferential, co-operative	Dominant, forceful
Liveliness	Serious, cautious	Animated, spontaneous
Rule Consciousness	Expedient	Rule conscious, dutiful
Social Boldness	Shy, timid	Venturesome
Sensitivity	Objective, unsentimental	Subjective, sentimental
Vigilance	Trusting, accepting	Suspicious, wary
Abstractedness	Practical, solution oriented	Imaginative, idea-oriented
Privateness	Straightforward, forthright	Private, discreet
Apprehension	Self-assured	Apprehensive
Openness to Change	Traditional, conservative	Open to change, experimenting
Self-reliance	Group-oriented, affiliative	Self-reliant, individualistic
Perfectionism	Tolerates disorder, flexible	Perfectionist, self-disciplined
Tension	Relaxed, patient	Tense, driven
Reasoning	Less able at intellectual reasoning	More able at intellectual reasoning

When can the 16PF be used?

The 16PF can be used in a variety of contexts, including:

Recruitment and selection, career planning and transition, executive business coaching, assessment for potential and leadership development.  Full comprehensive reports are available with this personality questionnaire.

How long does the 16PF take to complete?

Typically, the 16PF questionnaire takes about 50 minutes to complete but there is no time limit.  Feedback is provided by a qualified practitioner who is trained in the interpretation of the 16PF and a range of comprehensive reports are available depending on individual requirements.