Methodology

Methodology & Sources

What Persona Mosaic is (and isn't)

Persona Mosaic is a self-report personality inventory for iPhone. You respond to 120 statements on a 1–5 scale, and the app scores your answers into the Big Five personality traits and their 30 underlying facets, then reads your two strongest traits into an archetype.

We want to be upfront about what that is and isn't:

• It is a self-report portrait, not a verdict. It reflects how you described yourself today — not an external, objective measurement of your character.
• It is not clinical, diagnostic, or a hiring instrument. Do not use it to diagnose, screen, or evaluate anyone for employment, and it should not substitute for the judgment of a qualified professional.
• It is not a four-letter type system. Persona Mosaic does not sort you into one of sixteen boxes. It reports continuous trait scores; the archetype is a plain-language reading of your two strongest traits layered on top of those scores, not a replacement for them.
• It is not population-normed. Comparisons shown in the app are against a specific published research sample, labeled as such — not a claim about where you rank among all people.

The item pool: IPIP-NEO-120

All 120 statements are used verbatim from the IPIP-NEO-120, a public-domain personality inventory published in the International Personality Item Pool. We did not write new statements or paraphrase existing ones — the pool is openly licensed for exactly this kind of use, and we cite it rather than claim it as our own work.

Source: the International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org), and Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the five factor model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003

The model: Big Five, 30 facets

The Big Five (often called OCEAN) is the trait model with the broadest evidence base in personality psychology: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and an emotional-style dimension (labeled Neuroticism in the research literature). Each of the five domains breaks down into six narrower facets, for 30 facets total — the level of detail the full Dossier unlocks.

This structure follows the five-factor tradition developed and validated across decades of factor-analytic research, most notably by Costa and McCrae's NEO inventories. Persona Mosaic does not administer the NEO-PI-R or any other proprietary instrument — it uses the independently published, public-domain IPIP-NEO-120 item set, which was built to measure the same five-factor, thirty-facet structure under an open license.

How we score

• Response scale. Each of the 120 statements is answered on a 1–5 Likert scale (Very Inaccurate to Very Accurate).
• Reverse-keying. Roughly half the items are worded in the opposite direction of their trait (e.g., a low-Conscientiousness statement measuring Conscientiousness). Those items are reverse-scored as 6 − r before anything is averaged, so every item contributes in a consistent direction.
• Facet scores. Each of the 30 facets is the mean of its 4 associated items.
• Domain scores. Each of the 5 domains is the mean of its 6 facets.
• Display scale. Both facet and domain means are rescaled from the 1–5 response range to a 0–100 display range, which is what you see in the app.

What the comparisons mean

Where the app shows how your scores compare to others, that comparison is drawn against Johnson's published research sample — the norming sample reported alongside the IPIP-NEO-120 — and is labeled as such wherever it appears. It is not a claim about the general population, and it is not a percentile rank presented as fact.

Self-reports also vary — the same person answering on a different day, in a different mood, or in a different life season can score somewhat differently. That's expected and normal, not a flaw in the measurement.

Honest limits

• Self-report is not behavior. The inventory measures how you describe yourself, which can differ from how you actually act, especially under stress or in unfamiliar situations.
• Short facets are coarse. With 4 items per facet, each facet score is a directional read, not a precision instrument — treat it as a useful signal, not a fixed number.
• Retest variation is normal. Expect some movement if you retake the assessment weeks or months later. That reflects real variability in self-report, not an error in the app.
• It is not a substitute for professional assessment. If you have concerns about your mental health or wellbeing, talk to a qualified professional — this app is not built or validated for that purpose.

Privacy

Persona Mosaic collects nothing. There is no account, no analytics, and no tracking. Your responses and results are scored and stored entirely on your device.

References

1. 1. International Personality Item Pool. https://ipip.ori.org
2. 2. Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the five factor model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003
3. 3. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources. (Cited for the five-factor, thirty-facet tradition the public-domain item pool follows; Persona Mosaic does not administer this proprietary instrument.)