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Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB)3

Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test

In six minutes, the Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test uses 30 questions to explore how you respond to other people’s needs, fairness, responsibility, empathy, and helping. Your result offers a profile of these responses, supporting self-reflection about compassion, cooperation, moral choices, and everyday actions.

Questions: 306 minutes

Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB): situation and reply bubbles

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025Material has been updatedOctober 2, 2025Material has been published

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Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

HelpfulnessH

This scale measures how often a person engages in helpful actions based on past experiences of supporting others.

example score23/40

23/40Moderate helpfulnessexample score

8 – 18Lower helpfulness

19 – 27Moderate helpfulness

28 – 40Higher helpfulness

A score of 23 falls in the Moderate helpfulness range, suggesting an average tendency to take part in actions that benefit others and society.

Other-Oriented EmpathyOOE

Measures the tendency to understand, resonate with, and respond supportively to other people’s emotions and needs.

example score36/110

36/110Lower empathyexample score

22 – 61Lower empathy

62 – 78Moderate empathy

79 – 110Higher empathy

A score of 36 falls in the Lower empathy range, suggesting a comparatively reduced tendency to notice and emotionally attune to others’ feelings in everyday situations.

Conscious AltruismCA

Measures the tendency to offer voluntary help to others without expecting personal gain.

example score16/25

16/25Moderateexample score

5 – 9Low

10 – 18Moderate

19 – 25High

A score of 16 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting a generally prosocial orientation that may be expressed more consistently in certain situations than others.

Mutual CareMC

Mutual Care measures willingness to help others and expect reciprocal support in relationships.

example score7/15

7/15Lower mutual careexample score

3 – 7Lower mutual care

8 – 12Moderate mutual care

13 – 15Higher mutual care

A score of 7 suggests a lower tendency toward mutual helping and reciprocal support compared with typical cooperative patterns.

Personal DistressPD

Personal distress measures how much internal tension or anxiety you tend to feel when confronted with other people’s difficulties.

example score5/15

5/15Lowexample score

3 – 7Low

8 – 11Moderate

12 – 15High

A score of 5 falls in the Low range, suggesting you typically experience relatively little personal tension in response to others’ distress.

Perspective TakingPT

Measures cognitive flexibility in considering and integrating others’ viewpoints during social situations.

example score21/25

21/25Strong perspective-takingexample score

5 – 13Limited perspective-taking

14 – 19Developing flexibility

20 – 25Strong perspective-taking

A score of 21 suggests a strong tendency to consider different viewpoints and remain tolerant of differing opinions.

Empathic ConcernEC

Measures how readily you notice, understand, and emotionally respond to other people’s feelings with supportive concern.

example score10/20

10/20Lower empathic compassionexample score

4 – 10Lower empathic compassion

11 – 15Moderate empathic compassion

16 – 20Higher empathic compassion

A score of 10 falls in the Lower empathic compassion range, suggesting empathic concern may be present but less consistently engaged across situations.

Social ResponsibilitySR

Social responsibility measures willingness to follow social norms and take on obligations that benefit the broader community.

example score19/35

19/35Moderateexample score

7 – 17Lower

18 – 27Moderate

28 – 35Higher

A score of 19 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting a generally steady but situational tendency to act responsibly and engage in socially meaningful obligations.

Moral ReasoningMR

Moral reasoning measures how strongly a person relies on ethical principles when judging situations and making decisions.

example score5/15

5/15Developingexample score

3 – 6Developing

7 – 12Established

13 – 15Strong

A score of 5 falls in the Developing range, suggesting moral decisions may be more influenced by immediate context than by consistently applied ethical principles.

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DATA-BASED USER COHORTS

Who Usually Takes This Test?

People in helping professions

41%OF USERS

Psychologists, counselors, social workers, and educators take it to gauge empathy, responsibility, and supportive tendencies that affect client and student relationships.

HR and team leaders

34%OF USERS

Recruiters and managers use it to understand how cooperative and considerate someone is likely to be in team settings and service roles.

Volunteers and community helpers

25%OF USERS

People involved in volunteering or civic groups take it to reflect on their motivation to help and how they respond to others’ needs.

BASED ON AGGREGATED, ANONYMIZED DATA FROM TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREUDLY USERS.

Benchmarking

See How You Compare

Once you complete the test, your results are compared with real-world data from people in your country.
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.

Shaded area — where most people score

Dot — the average

You — your score lands on each curve after the test— your score, after the test

UsefulnessU

You?

Average17

Typical rangeTypical12.2 – 21.9

Possible8 – 40

Empathy, other-orientedEo

You?

Average63.3

Typical rangeTypical47.1 – 79.6

Possible22 – 110

Conscious AltruismCA

You?

Average16.3

Typical rangeTypical13.7 – 18.9

Possible5 – 25

Mutual CareMC

You?

Average9.9

Typical rangeTypical7.9 – 12

Possible3 – 15

Personal distressPd

You?

Average6.1

Typical rangeTypical4.2 – 7.9

Possible3 – 15

Considering Different PerspectivesCDP

You?

Average14.2

Typical rangeTypical11.1 – 17.4

Possible5 – 25

Empathic CompassionEC

You?

Average14.6

Typical rangeTypical11.6 – 17.6

Possible4 – 20

Social ResponsibilitySR

You?

Average19.9

Typical rangeTypical15 – 24.8

Possible7 – 35

Moral reasoningMr

You?

Average11.5

Typical rangeTypical9.5 – 13.4

Possible3 – 15

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Example Questions From the Test

- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree

These are 3 of the 30 real questions — the rest appear in the test. No sign-up needed to start.

WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test - Description and methodology of the test

prosociality

People who want to understand their everyday contribution to others may use the Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test as a structured self-reflection tool. It suits readers interested in how compassion, fairness, responsibility, and practical helping appear in their choices and behavior. A prosocial personality test of this kind produces a multidimensional profile rather than a single label or overall ranking.

What This Assessment Explores

As an altruistic personality assessment, this questionnaire examines moral judgment, empathy, perspective taking, cooperation, responsibility, and observable helping. Agreement items address fairness, compassion, viewpoints, and shared interests; frequency items address ordinary acts of assistance.

The result dimensions and displayed bands are:

Helpfulness (8-40) reflects past helping: Lower helpfulness 8-18; Moderate helpfulness 19-27; Higher helpfulness 28-40. Other-Oriented Empathy (22-110) reflects understanding and support: Lower empathy 22-61; Moderate empathy 62-78; Higher empathy 79-110.
Conscious Altruism (5-25) reflects voluntary help without expected gain: Low 5-9; Moderate 10-18; High 19-25. Mutual Care (3-15) reflects cooperation and reciprocal support: Lower mutual care 3-7; Moderate mutual care 8-12; Higher mutual care 13-15.
Personal Distress (3-15) reflects tension around others’ difficulties: Low 3-7; Moderate 8-11; High 12-15. Perspective Taking (5-25) reflects consideration of viewpoints: Limited perspective-taking 5-13; Developing flexibility 14-19; Strong perspective-taking 20-25.
Empathic Concern (4-20) reflects emotional understanding and readiness to support: Lower empathic compassion 4-10; Moderate empathic compassion 11-15; Higher empathic compassion 16-20. Social Responsibility (7-35) reflects obligations and social norms: Lower 7-17; Moderate 18-27; Higher 28-35.
Moral Reasoning (3-15) reflects ethical decision-making: Developing 3-6; Established 7-12; Strong 13-15.

Methodology and Scientific Basis

Most attitudinal items use five ordered agreement choices, while the behavioral items use five frequency choices from Never to Very often. Responses are combined into the named dimensions, and higher scores are interpreted according to each dimension’s stated meaning. The result is therefore a profile of tendencies across related aspects of prosocial functioning, not one composite personality label.

The structure is conceptually consistent with Prosocial Personality Battery (Penner et al., 1995), but this online questionnaire should not be described as a direct reproduction or validated adaptation of that published work. Penner’s 2002 research on sustained volunteerism and Carlo et al.’s 1991 study of altruistic personality across contexts provide relevant comparison points for understanding helping dispositions and situational variation. For readers seeking an empathy and helping behavior test, the combination of moral judgments, interpersonal reactions, perspective-taking statements, and reported actions offers both attitudinal and behavioral angles.

The displayed bands are descriptive result labels rather than normative or clinical cutoffs. Because this is a self-report format, scores can be influenced by current circumstances, self-awareness, memory, and the wish to present oneself favorably; interpret the profile alongside consistent behavior and personal context.

Author: Gustavo Carlo, Nancy Eisenberg

Literature:

Penner, Louis A., Barbara A. Fritzsche, J. Philip Craiger, and Tamara S. Freifeld. “Measuring the Prosocial Personality.” In Advances in Personality Assessment, vol. 10, edited by J. N. Butcher and C. D. Spielberger, pp. 147-163. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995.
Penner, Louis A. “Dispositional and Organizational Influences on Sustained Volunteerism: An Interactionist Perspective.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 58, no. 3, 2002, pp. 447-467. 10.1111/1540-4560.00270
Carlo, Gustavo, Nancy Eisenberg, Debra Troyer, Galen E. Switzer, and Anna Lee Speer. “The Altruistic Personality: In What Contexts Is It Apparent?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 61, no. 3, 1991, pp. 450-458. 10.1037/0022-3514.61.3.450

Updated: 2025-10-02