Methodology: How Our Political Tests Are Built and Scored

The four axes

Most people do not fit on a single left-right line. Our tests measure four separate dimensions. Each one runs from -100 to +100, and a score near zero means your answers balanced out on that dimension.

Economic: Equality vs Markets. How much the economy should be shaped by public action, redistribution and shared ownership, compared with private property, competition and free exchange.
Civil: Liberty vs Authority. How much power the state should have over personal life, speech, privacy and security.
Society: Progress vs Tradition. Whether social norms should change with the times, or stay anchored in inherited customs and long-standing institutions.
Diplomatic: Global vs Nation. Whether decisions and loyalty should lean toward international cooperation and shared institutions, or toward national sovereignty and national interest.

The Political Values Test reports all four scores. The Political Compass Test uses the same statements but reports two axes, as described below. The 12 Axes Political Test splits these four into 12 narrower axes, explained further down.

The 7-point scale

Every statement is answered on a seven-point scale: strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, neutral, somewhat agree, agree and strongly agree. Internally these are stored as whole numbers from -3 to +3.

Seven points give enough room to separate a firm view from a mild one, while keeping a true middle option for people who are unsure or genuinely torn. A neutral answer counts as answered and pulls that axis a little toward the center. If you skip a statement, it is left out of your score entirely.

Scoring

Each statement has a small set of weights that describe which axes it touches and in which direction. Agreeing moves you in the direction of the weight, disagreeing moves you the opposite way, and stronger answers move you further.

For each axis we add up the weighted answers and divide by the largest total that was possible given the statements you saw. The result is scaled to the range -100 to +100. This means your score reflects how consistently you leaned one way, not how many statements you happened to answer.

Some statements touch more than one axis. A statement about trade, for example, can say something about both economic and diplomatic views. These carry a smaller secondary weight so that no single statement dominates a score.

Balanced keying

People have a well documented tendency to agree with statements, whatever they say. Researchers call this acquiescence bias. If every economic statement were worded so that agreeing meant "more markets", that habit alone would push people to the right.

To cancel this out, every axis has statements keyed in both directions. Roughly half are worded so that agreeing points to one pole, and half so that agreeing points to the other. Someone who agrees with everything ends up near the center, not at an extreme.

How the Compass is derived

The Political Compass Test places you on two axes:

Horizontal (x): your economic score.
Vertical (y): the average of your civil and society scores. Up means more authority and tradition, down means more liberty and change.

Combining civil and society this way follows the long tradition of two-axis political charts. It is a useful summary, but it does hide some detail. A person who is very libertarian on civil questions and very traditional on social ones will land near the middle of the vertical axis. The Values test shows those two scores separately.

A result within 15 points of the center on both axes is labeled centrist. Otherwise you are placed in one of four quadrants: authoritarian left, authoritarian right, libertarian left or libertarian right.

Where the questions come from

The statements were written for this site, drawing on established, published frameworks:

The Pew Research Center political typology, for the range of economic and social issues that separate groups of voters.
Moral Foundations Theory, for values such as care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity that shape views on society and tradition.
The Nolan chart, for the idea of measuring economic freedom and personal freedom as separate dimensions.

Each statement was then reviewed for plain language, a single clear idea, and neutral wording. Statements never mention parties, politicians or current campaigns, and avoid terms that signal a side. The question bank is reviewed over time, and changes to scoring are noted on this page.

Ideology matches

We place each ideology in our explorer at a position on all four axes, based on how its core ideas answer the same kinds of questions. Your closest matches are the ideologies with the smallest overall distance from your four scores. These positions are simplified descriptions of broad traditions, and real people and movements within each tradition vary widely.

In the Values test, the match percentage is 100 × (1 - distance ÷ 2). The distance is measured between your four scores (divided by 100) and the ideology's position, and 2 is the distance from the center of the map to its far corner. A perfect overlap reads 100%. The 12 Axes test uses the same idea on 12 axes, described in Matching on 12 axes.

The 12 Axes test

The 12 Axes Political Test keeps the same four groups and the same sign convention, but splits each group into narrower axes, so views that a broad average would hide stay visible. Someone can favor free markets and tariffs at the same time, or be secular and still cautious about new technology. Every axis runs from -100 to +100 between two named poles.

Twelve axes in four groups

Economy has three axes, State and liberty three, Society four and World two. Each bar below reads like the result chart: dots on the left are the first pole (-100), solid ink on the right is the second pole (+100), and the dashed line in the middle is balanced (0).

Economy

Equality vs Markets · 3 axes

Ownership
PublicPrivate
Whether key industries, land and services should be owned collectively or by the state, or privately.
Markets
PlannedFree
How much government should plan, regulate and steer the economy versus leaving prices and competition to markets.
Welfare
SharedSelf-reliant
Whether taxes and public programs should redistribute income and provide a broad safety net, or people should rely mainly on themselves, family and charity.

State and liberty

Liberty vs Authority · 3 axes

Authority
DemocraticStrong leader
Trust in elections, checks and balances and opposition rights versus a preference for strong leadership with fewer limits.
Security
LibertyOrder
The balance between privacy, free expression and civil liberties and policing, surveillance, punishment and public order.
Structure
LocalCentral
Whether power should sit with states, regions and communities or with one uniform national government.

Society

Progress vs Tradition · 4 axes

Morality
ProgressiveTraditional
Openness to social change on family, gender, sexuality and personal choices versus preserving established norms.
Religion
SecularReligious
Whether religion should stay separate from law and public institutions or shape them.
Technology
EmbraceCaution
Enthusiasm for new technology such as AI and genetic engineering versus caution to protect nature, jobs and ways of life.
Culture
MulticulturalNational identity
Welcoming many cultures and higher immigration versus prioritizing a shared national culture, language and assimilation.

World

Global vs Nation · 2 axes

Trade
GlobalProtected
Free trade and economic integration across borders versus tariffs and protecting domestic industry.
Foreign policy
CooperationStrength
Diplomacy, alliances and international institutions versus military strength, sovereignty and acting alone when needed.

Reading the rose

Your result is drawn as a rose with one petal per axis. This is a sample result with each part labeled.

A petal is one axisTwelve petals, one per axis. Past the dashed ring the petal turns solid: you lean to the second pole. Here Trade leans Protected.
Dotted and short: the first poleA petal that stops inside the ring is printed in dots. Here Religion leans Secular.
The star is your scoreEach star marks your exact score from -100 to +100. Markets here is +38.
The dashed ring is balancedA score of 0. A petal that ends on the ring means your answers on that axis evened out.
Center: first poleThe middle of the rose is -100 on every axis: Public, Planned, Shared, Democratic, Liberty and so on.
Rim: second poleThe outer circle is +100 on every axis: Private, Free, Self-reliant, Strong leader, Order and so on.
The color band is the groupEconomy in red, State and liberty in navy, Society in mustard, World in green. Petals take the color of their group.

Three depths

The test comes in three lengths that measure the same 12 axes. Quick has 36 statements, three per axis. Standard has 72, six per axis, and includes every Quick statement. Deep uses all 162 statements in the bank: 13 or 14 per axis, plus 15 statements that also touch a second axis. Longer versions put more statements behind each axis, so a single answer moves your score less.

Balanced keying on every axis

The same rule applies to each of the 12 axes. In Standard, every axis has exactly three statements where agreeing points to one pole and three where agreeing points to the other. Quick has three statements per axis, so one pole gets two and the other gets one. This alternates from axis to axis, so the Quick test as a whole is split 18 and 18. In Deep, each axis is split 7 and 7 or 7 and 6.

Statements per axis and depth: the first number agrees toward the first pole, the second toward the second pole. Main statements only.
Axis	Quick	Standard	Deep
OwnershipPublic vs Private	2 / 1	3 / 3	7 / 7
MarketsPlanned vs Free	1 / 2	3 / 3	6 / 7
WelfareShared vs Self-reliant	2 / 1	3 / 3	6 / 7
AuthorityDemocratic vs Strong leader	1 / 2	3 / 3	7 / 7
SecurityLiberty vs Order	2 / 1	3 / 3	7 / 6
StructureLocal vs Central	1 / 2	3 / 3	6 / 7
MoralityProgressive vs Traditional	2 / 1	3 / 3	7 / 6
ReligionSecular vs Religious	1 / 2	3 / 3	7 / 7
TechnologyEmbrace vs Caution	2 / 1	3 / 3	6 / 7
CultureMulticultural vs National identity	1 / 2	3 / 3	7 / 7
TradeGlobal vs Protected	2 / 1	3 / 3	7 / 7
Foreign policyCooperation vs Strength	1 / 2	3 / 3	7 / 7
All 12 axes	18 / 18	36 / 36	80 / 82

Each cell reads first pole / second pole: how many statements on that axis move you toward each pole when you agree. Counted from the live question bank, main axis only.

Across all three depths the two poles get almost the same number of statements, so someone who agrees with everything lands near the middle of every axis, not at one end.

Understand this question

Every statement has a short explainer behind an Understand this question button. It gives neutral background, the main reason people agree and the main reason people disagree. It never suggests an answer, and opening it has no effect on your score. Explainers follow the same neutrality rules as the statements, see our editorial standards.

How the 12 scores are computed

Each statement has a weight of +1 or -1 on one main axis, and at most one smaller weight of +0.5 or -0.5 on a second axis. The 15 statements with a second axis appear only in Deep. For each axis:

Axis score = 100 × the sum of (weight × answer ÷ 3), divided by the sum of the weights' sizes, over the statements you answered that touch that axis. It is rounded to a whole number from -100 to +100.
Skipped statements are left out. A neutral answer counts and pulls the axis toward 0. An axis with no answered statements scores 0.
Group score = the plain average of its axes. Economy averages ownership, markets and welfare. State and liberty averages authority, security and structure. Society averages morality, religion, technology and culture. World averages trade and foreign policy.

Here is one real statement from the test and exactly what an answer does.

1 The statement
“Tariffs on imported goods are a good way to protect domestic jobs.”
Scored on Trade only
2 You answer
Agree, stored as +2 on a scale from -3 to +3.
3 The math
+1 × +2 ÷ 3 = +0.67
The statement's weight on Trade is +1. Agreeing moves you toward Protected, disagreeing toward Global.
4 Your Trade score
GlobalProtected
One step toward Protected, away from Global. Alone it would give +67. In Standard it is one of 6 Trade statements, so the others count just as much.

★ Understand this question, as shown in the test

Tariffs are taxes on imports that make foreign goods more expensive.

Supporters think tariffs help domestic producers compete and keep jobs at home.

Opponents think tariffs raise prices for consumers and invite other countries to respond.

The compass projection

Your 12 scores are also placed on the classic two-axis compass. Across (x) is your Economy score. Up and down (y) is the average of your State and liberty and Society scores, the same rule the Compass test uses. World has no place on a two-axis map, so it is reported on its own. Because the 12 Axes test has its own statements and averages narrower axes, its compass point can differ a little from a Political Compass Test result for the same person.

- Ownership-22
- Markets+38
- Welfare-46
Economy-10
Compass across (x)
- Authority-58
- Security+26
- Structure-24
State and liberty-18.7
Compass up and down (y) averaged with Society
- Morality-36
- Religion-64
- Technology+44
- Culture-30
Society-21.5
Compass up and down (y) averaged with State and liberty
- Trade+52
- Foreign policy-34
World+9
Its own score

Across (x): Economy is -10. Left is Equality, right is Markets.
Up and down (y): (-18.7 + -21.5) ÷ 2 = -20. Up is Authority and Tradition, down is Liberty and Progress.
World: +9 has no place on a two-axis map, so it is shown as its own score.

Computed live from the same sample answers used on this page.

Matching on 12 axes

Every ideology, party and historical figure has a profile on the same 12 axes, from -1 to +1 on each. Your scores are divided by 100 so they sit on the same scale.

Distance. For every axis the profile has a value for, we take the difference between you and the profile, square it, add these up and take the square root. This is the straight-line distance between two points in 12 dimensions.
Match percentage = 100 × (1 - distance ÷ the largest possible distance), rounded and never below 0. The largest possible distance is 2 × the square root of the number of axes compared: the gap between two complete opposites. 100% means the same position on every axis.
Ranking. Matches are ranked by distance per compared axis, so a profile with a few blank axes is compared fairly with a complete one. Profiles with fewer than six known axes are left out of matching.
Blank axes for historical figures. When there is no reasonable basis for a figure's view on an axis, for example an 18th-century writer on artificial intelligence, that axis is left blank and skipped in the comparison.

Because the largest distance is the gap between two complete opposites, most profiles land somewhere between about 50% and 90% for most people. Read the order of your matches more than the exact number.

A match is a similarity, not an endorsement. It says your answers sit close to a profile on these 12 axes. It does not mean we recommend a party or ideology, that a historical figure would agree with you on today's issues, or that you belong to any group. We do not endorse any party, ideology or person.

How we build profiles

Profiles are written to our editorial standards and scored on the same 12 axes as the test, with a short note wherever a score needs explaining.

Ideologies are placed at the mainstream position of the tradition, as described in standard reference works and the tradition's own key texts, not at its most extreme branch. Where a tradition is split on an axis, it sits nearer the middle and the note says why. Each page lists its sources and criticisms from more than one side.
Parties are scored from their official platforms, manifestos and public record, such as how their members vote. Parties change, so every party profile carries an "as of" date and is reviewed over time. Every party in a country gets the same depth of coverage. Party pages stay in draft, out of search and out of results, until a person has checked them.
Historical figures are scored from documented views: their own writings, speeches and actions, and reputable biographies. If there is no reasonable basis for a view on an axis, it is left blank rather than guessed.
No living politicians. For now we profile only historical figures, so the site never scores people who are in office or running today.

Figure quizzes

The figure quizzes, from Which Historical Leader Are You?, Which US President Are You? and Which Philosopher Are You? to the quizzes for UK, Canadian and Australian prime ministers, German chancellors and Brazilian presidents, are short versions of the same method. Each one uses 12 statements taken from the 12 Axes question bank, with the same wording and the same weights.

Scoring. Answers are scored with the 12 Axes formula, but only on the 10 axes each quiz covers. Two of those axes have two statements, one keyed each way. The other eight rest on a single statement, so one answer decides that axis.
Matching. Your scores are compared with each figure's profile using the same match percentage as the full test, over the quiz's axes only. A figure needs a known position on at least 8 of the 10 axes to appear as a result.
Which axes. Each quiz picks the 10 of the 12 axes on which the figures it draws on are best documented, and its 12 statements are chosen in simulation so that every figure in the pool can come out on top (nearly every one, in the historical leader quiz with its much larger pool).
Who can come out. The historical leader quiz draws on every historical figure we profile. The national quizzes and the philosopher quiz draw on the matching figure category, such as UK prime ministers or thinkers and philosophers, so a new profile joins its quiz without a list to update. Every quiz leaves out figures whose own profiles describe mass killing or mass deaths of civilians under their government, which a playful result cannot present responsibly. Their figure pages and the full 12 Axes matching are unchanged.

With so few statements, a quiz result is a light first read. For a fuller comparison with every profile, take the 12 Axes Political Test.

The embedded mini Compass

Other sites can embed a mini Political Compass on their pages. It uses 12 statements from the Political Compass Test, with the same wording and weights: four economic, four civil and four society statements, two keyed each way on every axis. It is scored with the same Compass formula, so the vertical position is still the average of the civil and society scores.

Mini Compass12 of 48 statements

Economic42 agree toward Left, 2 toward Right
Civil42 agree toward Liberty, 2 toward Authority
Society42 agree toward Progress, 2 toward Tradition

Scored with the Compass formula: across (x) is Economic, up and down (y) is the average of Civil and Society, exactly like the full test.

Four statements per axis give a rough position, not a precise one. When a visitor opens the full result from the widget, the result page says it came from the 12-statement mini test and offers the full 48-statement test. The widget never stores answers, only the two final scores, without research consent.

Sources and corrections

Statements describe a policy or value without naming parties or politicians. Factual claims on ideology, party and figure pages are backed by the sources listed on each page. If you spot an error, an unfair description or a broken source, please tell us on the corrections page. Significant corrections are listed in the public corrections log there.

Privacy

No account needed. You can take any test and see your full free result without signing up or giving an email address.
Answers stay private by default. Your scores are used to show your result. Your individual answers are stored only if you tick the optional research consent box, which is unchecked by default.
Never sold. We do not sell answers or results to anyone.
Shareable links carry scores only. A result link contains your axis scores, never your answers.

See the privacy policy for details.

Limitations

No test can capture everything a person believes. Your result depends on the statements we chose, on how you read them, and on how you felt the day you answered. Treat it as a starting point for reflection and conversation, not as a label.

Not a scientific instrument. The tests are carefully built and openly scored, but they have not been validated the way academic survey scales are, and there is no reference sample behind the numbers.
Statements carry framing. Any wording frames an issue in some way. We keep statements plain and keyed in both directions, but a different wording could move some answers.
Results depend on honesty. Your result reflects the answers you give. Answering how you think you should feel, rather than how you do, changes it.
Shorter means noisier. With three statements per axis, as in the Quick version, one answer can move an axis a lot. Standard and Deep give steadier scores.
Quizzes and the mini Compass are short. The figure quizzes use 12 statements on 10 axes and the embedded mini Compass uses 12 statements on 3 axes. Treat their results as a quick impression and use the full tests for a steadier position.
Profiles are simplified. Ideology, party and figure profiles summarize broad positions on 12 axes. Real movements and people are more varied than any profile.

How the tests work. All of it.