Values Test
This is an independent values test, built from published psychology research — it has no connection to Suzy Welch’s paid values assessment of a similar name, doesn’t use her framework, and doesn’t reproduce or replace it. Answer 25 quick questions about everyday choices and situations, and you’ll get a clear picture of which of five values — independence, stability, achievement, care, or enjoyment — leads your choices most consistently, plus where the other four stand too. Takes about 5 minutes.
The Open Road. Independent judgment leads the way.
Independent judgment is the value your answers lean toward most consistently. You'd rather work something out yourself and live with the result than hand the decision to a template someone else wrote.
It shows up in ordinary moments: a job offer nobody in your circle would have taken, a week built around a schedule you set instead of one you inherited. Novelty rarely reads as a threat; more often, it reads as room to move.
The strength is real — you don't wait for permission, and you're comfortable improvising when a plan falls apart. The cost sits close to that same strength: the steadiness that comes from staying with an agreed plan gets less of your attention, so routines that depend on consistency can wobble under you.
This result doesn't say whether striking out on your own is actually possible right now — only that it's the pull you feel most. The other four values are measured here too, and this test never ranks one above another. If a second or third value is also standing tall in your results, that's the normal shape of a real profile, not an exception to this one.
Steady Ground. A settled, secure footing leads the way.
A familiar routine gets protected rather than abandoned. A known job or city has to lose a comparison clearly before you'll trade it for something less certain. Run across your answers, that pattern points to one value pulling hardest: predictability, a settled and secure footing, mattering more to you than novelty for its own sake.
Even a genuinely appealing option can lose to what you already have, simply because the appealing one is less certain.
The price of that steadiness is real: a good but uncertain option can lose out even when it might have been worth the risk, and something familiar can get kept well past its useful life. What you get in exchange is real too — follow-through on what's already working, and no disruption just to feel something new.
What's still unknown is where that pull toward the familiar is taking you next. This isn't a claim that your life is stable right now, only that stability is the strongest pull when you're the one choosing. And it rarely stands entirely alone — the other four values are scored here too, none outranking the others, and a second or third commonly shows up close behind your strongest.
The Long Build. Visible output leads the way.
Getting something done is the pull your answers lean into hardest. A visible result you can point to matters more to you than a day or a week that simply felt fine, with nothing much to show for it.
You know this because you tally what a day or a month actually produced, more than you tally how it felt.
The strength is momentum and a clear internal scoreboard; the shadow, even as that scoreboard runs, is that the people and the unscheduled care that don't register on it can quietly slide down your list.
None of the five values measured here outranks another, and the other four are just as real, each with its own bar further down this page — most profiles show real strength in two or three of them alongside the one that leads. What a full calendar of finished things is actually costing you, if anything, is what stays open.
The Warm Room. What serves people close to you leads the way.
Ask what actually serves the people closest to you, and that is where your answers land most consistently — their wellbeing genuinely factors first, more than what you'd prefer for yourself alone.
An opportunity that would cost the people around you something gets weighed seriously before you say yes. Your calendar, more than anything, reads like a map of who you're seeing next.
Your own separate priorities can end up permanently second, deferred in favor of everyone else's, without you quite deciding that on purpose — that's the shadow side of it. What you get back is real, too: relationships that can be counted on, and a readiness to actually show up when it's inconvenient.
This result says nothing about whether those relationships are currently thriving, only which pull is strongest when you imagine deciding — and it sits alongside four other real, equally unranked values on this page, not above them. Two or three of those five usually stand out clearly next to whichever value leads; yours is unlikely to be a true solo act. What's left open is whose needs, including your own, actually get named out loud.
The Present Table. Enjoying the moment leads the way.
It isn't a hypothetical later that pulls hardest in your answers — it's the immediate, felt experience of a choice, pleasure and enjoyment now.
A smaller reward available today beats a bigger one still weeks away; a free evening goes toward whatever sounds good in the moment.
The strength is presence, an actual ability to enjoy what's in front of you instead of endlessly postponing it for a someday that may never arrive. Still, a bigger, later gain can keep losing to whatever feels good today, even on occasions you'd have chosen otherwise if you'd stopped to think.
Whether "later" is getting its due, or quietly losing every time, is what stays open here. The other four values on this page are equally real and never ranked against this one; rarely does just one value stand alone in a result like this, with two or three others usually part of the picture too.
Your results are no accident
The classic 16-type personality test rooted in Jung's typology has been rebuilt from the ground up: a new CoreTypes methodology, and a far higher level of accuracy. These might be the most useful ten minutes you'll ever spend on yourself: you walk away with the key to your decisions, your relationships and your results — and it's yours for good.
Take the free testFrequently Asked Questions
How do I figure out my core values?
Having one value "come out on top" in this test names the pull that showed up most consistently across your own answers — it's not a ranking of every value a person could hold, and it's not a verdict on whether that pull is currently visible in your actual life. Treat it as a starting point for noticing a pattern, not a final answer.
Why does my life look fine on paper but feel wrong?
That gap is ordinary, not a sign that something's broken. Wellbeing tracks less with how a life looks from the outside and more with how closely daily choices actually match what a person values most — so a full calendar and a solid résumé can still feel off if they're not built around your own strongest pull.
How do I rank my values when I can't have everything?
Constraint is exactly what surfaces which value is heaviest — when two good things can't both happen, the one you actually choose tells you more than either would alone. This test leans on that same principle across five domains, one everyday trade-off at a time.
Can my values change over time?
Yes. Values can shift with life stage and circumstance, so this result reflects today's answers, not a permanent label. Retaking the test later, after a real change in your circumstances, is expected to be able to move it.
Is this the same test as the well-known paid values assessment?
No. This test is a separate, independent piece of work — it doesn't use that assessment's specific vocabulary, wasn't built with its involvement, and doesn't claim to reproduce, replace, or grade against it. It's free, based on openly published research, and sorts values into five plain-English domains instead of a proprietary framework.
Methodology
This test draws on decades of psychological research that treats personal values as a small set of core life-orientation domains, plus separate research linking wellbeing to how closely someone's daily choices track their own stated values.
It measures which of five values — independent judgment and self-direction, predictability and a settled footing, visible achievement, care for people close to you, and present enjoyment — comes through most consistently across your own answers. Each is scored as its own standalone pull, not against a paired opposite, so leaning toward stability or care scores exactly as strongly as leaning toward independence or achievement.
Like any self-report tool, it has real limits: it reduces a fuller personal-values picture down to one standout domain rather than a full ranking, it isn't a diagnostic or clinical instrument, and values shift with life stage and circumstance, so your result reflects today's answers, not a permanent label.
This test is a separate, independent piece of work. It is not affiliated with, and does not use the specific vocabulary of, any commercial values assessment that shares part of its name — it wasn't built with that product's involvement and doesn't claim to reproduce, replace, or grade against it. It draws instead on open, published literature, costs nothing to take, and sorts values into five plain-English domains rather than a proprietary framework.
For more background, see the APA Dictionary of Psychology's entry on value and Wikipedia's overview of the theory of basic human values.
References
- Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). doi:10.9707/2307-0919.1116
- Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: Free Press.
- Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-Being: The Self-Concordance Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 482–497. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.482
