Conscientiousness
Achievement-Striving
How hard you push toward goals and standards you set yourself.
Why it is measured
Ambition is separable from discipline. Some people want a great deal and struggle to execute.
What a high or low score looks like
High scorers set demanding aims and work toward them. Low scorers are content with sufficient.
Why it matters
Measures drive, not accomplishment. The two are related but far from identical.
The items behind it
Four public-domain statements, answered on a five-point scale. Items marked − are reverse keyed: agreeing with them counts against the trait, which is what stops agreeing with everything from producing a high score.
- +Work hard
- +Do more than what's expected of me
- -Do just enough work to get by
- -Put little time and effort into my work
Four items is not many. A facet measured this way carries real uncertainty, which is why every score on this site is reported as a range rather than a single number.