Most emotionally stable personality type: data on 19,718 people

All 16 types ranked by emotional stability

We scored the public Open Psychometrics BIG5 dataset: answers to the same 50 public-domain IPIP Big Five items^[3] that 64 Types uses, given by 19,719 online volunteers around 2012.^[1] After dropping one incomplete record (N = 19,718), we gave every person a four-letter code exactly as the 64 Types test does: E/I from Extraversion, N/S from Openness, F/T from Agreeableness and J/P from Conscientiousness, each split at the sample’s median. Then we looked at the trait the four letters leave out, emotional stability, which is the reverse of neuroticism.

For each code, the table shows the average emotional stability percentile (50 = the middle of the sample) and the share of people at or above the median. In a 64 Types code, those people get the fifth letter C (Composed) and everyone else gets R (Responsive); the science page explains both extra letters.

The whole sample averages 50 by definition, and 51.8% of people have the C letter (a little over half, because people who score exactly at the median count as C).^[1] ENFJ, ESFJ, ENTJ and ESTJ are the four most emotionally stable codes; INFP, ISTP, ISFP and INTP are the four least stable. Each average has a margin of error of roughly one to two points, so codes in the middle of the table that differ by a point or two, such as ENFP, ENTP, INFJ and ISFJ, are effectively tied.

Why some types score calmer: correlated traits

If emotional stability had nothing to do with the other four traits, every code would average about 50. It does not, because in this sample emotional stability correlates with each of them, most strongly with Extraversion and Conscientiousness:^[1]

• Extraversion: r = .26. People with the E letter average 56 on emotional stability, and 61% of them have C; people with I average 44, and 43% have C.
• Conscientiousness: r = .26. The J letter averages 56 (61% with C); the P letter averages 44 (43% with C).
• Agreeableness: r = .11. The F letter averages 53 (56% with C); the T letter averages 47 (48% with C).
• Openness: r = .10. The N letter averages 52 (55% with C); the S letter averages 48 (49% with C).

The two strongest links add up. Codes with both E and J (ENFJ, ESFJ, ENTJ, ESTJ) average 62, and 69% of those people have C; codes with both I and P (INFP, ISFP, INTP, ISTP) average 39, and only 36% have C. The mixed groups, E with P and I with J, both sit near the middle at about 50. That is the order in the table: the four E-J codes take the top four places and the four I-P codes the bottom four.^[1]

None of this shows that being outgoing or organized makes people calm, or the reverse. These are correlations in one sample measured at one point in time, and the data cannot say which way any influence runs.

Why can a four-letter type not answer the question on its own? When McCrae and Costa compared the MBTI with a Big Five inventory, its four scales corresponded to Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, but none of them captured Neuroticism.^[2] A type code therefore links to emotional stability only indirectly, through the traits it happens to correlate with. That is why some tests add a fifth marker such as -A/-T, and why 64 Types measures emotional stability directly. See neuroticism and emotional stability explained and Assertive vs Turbulent.

Your type is a weak guide to your own calm

The averages hide a wide spread. Across all 19,718 people, the 16 codes explain only about 9% of the differences in emotional stability (eta squared = .09); the other 91% are differences between people who share a code.^[1] In concrete terms, 27% of ENFJs, the most stable code, have the R letter, and 33% of INFPs, the least stable, have C. About a quarter of INFPs score at or above the 58th percentile, and about a quarter of ENFJs score at or below the 47th.

The ranking is not a side effect of who took the test. Men in the sample averaged 56 and women 46, and some codes have more women than others: 78% of ESFPs are women, but only 44% of ENTJs and of INTPs. Yet when we rank the codes separately for men and for women, ENFJ is the most stable code in both groups, and the four I-P codes are the four least stable in both.^[1]

Age matters at least as much as type. In this sample, average emotional stability rises from 44 among 13- to 17-year-olds to 51 at ages 25 to 34 and 62 at 50 and older.^[1] Studies that follow the same people over many years find the same direction: on average, emotional stability rises across adulthood, especially between about 20 and 40.^[4]

How far to trust these numbers

• Our sample is not representative. The BIG5 data come from volunteers who took a free online test: 61% women, median age 22, from more than 150 countries and territories, with 44% in the United States.^[1] Treat our numbers as a description of this sample, not of the world’s population.
• Everything is self-report. Each person rated themselves on ten statements such as “I get stressed out easily” and “I am relaxed most of the time”.^[3] These are standard questions for the trait, but they capture how people see themselves on the day they answer, not a clinical assessment.
• Most people are near the middle. Scores pile up around the center rather than falling into two camps,^[5] so a small change in score can change a letter, and many people get a different type on retest.^[6] A code is an approximate label, and so is C or R.
• Our codes are not MBTI results. The letters are built from Big Five scores, and they correspond to the MBTI letters only partly.^[2] Someone who is an INFP on the MBTI may have a different code here. See MBTI vs the Big Five.
• Low emotional stability is not a diagnosis. Neuroticism is a normal trait on which everyone has a position: the tendency to respond to threat, frustration or loss with negative emotions.^[7] A low average for a type says nothing about the mental health of any one person with that type.

What this means for you

If you are an INFP, ISTP or ISFP, the table does not say that you are anxious, and if you are an ENFJ it does not say that you are calm. It says that in this sample, people who describe themselves as introverted and spontaneous also tend, modestly, to describe themselves as more easily stressed. Your own emotional stability score is what describes you, which is why 64 Types measures it directly and reports it as the fifth letter with a percentile.

Emotional stability is also one of the more changeable traits. It tends to rise with age,^[4] and in a review of 207 intervention studies it was the trait that changed most, over an average of 24 weeks.^[8]

The two tips below are practical suggestions, not research findings.

Frequently asked questions