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Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB)3

Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test

Understand how strongly someone tends to care for others and offer support in about 6 minutes. Get clear, stable trait scores from 30 items to guide hiring, coaching, and team fit.

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Questions: 306 minutes

08:30

October 2, 2025

October 2, 2025
Material has been updated

October 2, 2025
Material has been published

13,666 views

1,570 completions

1,226 likes

Verified by Daniel Hall

Psychologist with 25 years of experience

Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

example score

23/40

Helpfulness (H)

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

Lower helpfulness

Moderate helpfulness

Higher helpfulness

8 – 18: Lower helpfulness | 19 – 27: Moderate helpfulness | 28 – 40: Higher 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.

example score

36/110

Other-Oriented Empathy (OOE)

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

Lower empathy

Moderate empathy

Higher empathy

22 – 61: Lower empathy | 62 – 78: Moderate empathy | 79 – 110: Higher 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.

example score

16/25

Conscious Altruism (CA)

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

Low

Moderate

High

5 – 9: Low | 10 – 18: Moderate | 19 – 25: High

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.

example score

7/15

Mutual Care (MC)

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

Lower mutual care

Moderate mutual care

Higher mutual care

3 – 7: Lower mutual care | 8 – 12: Moderate mutual care | 13 – 15: Higher mutual care

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

example score

5/15

Personal Distress (PD)

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

Low

Moderate

High

3 – 7: Low | 8 – 11: Moderate | 12 – 15: High

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

example score

21/25

Perspective Taking (PT)

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

Limited perspective-taking

Developing flexibility

Strong perspective-taking

5 – 13: Limited perspective-taking | 14 – 19: Developing flexibility | 20 – 25: Strong perspective-taking

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

example score

10/20

Empathic Concern (EC)

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

Lower empathic compassion

Moderate empathic compassion

Higher empathic compassion

4 – 10: Lower empathic compassion | 11 – 15: Moderate empathic compassion | 16 – 20: Higher 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.

example score

19/35

Social Responsibility (SR)

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

Lower

Moderate

Higher

7 – 17: Lower | 18 – 27: Moderate | 28 – 35: Higher

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.

example score

5/15

Moral Reasoning (MR)

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

Developing

Established

Strong

3 – 6: Developing | 7 – 12: Established | 13 – 15: Strong

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.

Usefulness (U)

Average

Normal range

12.2 — 21.9

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Empathy, other-oriented (Eo)

Average

63.3

Normal range

47.1 — 79.6

min.

max.

110

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Conscious Altruism (CA)

Average

16.3

Normal range

13.7 — 18.9

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Mutual Care (MC)

Average

9.9

Normal range

7.9 — 12

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Personal distress (Pd)

Average

6.1

Normal range

4.2 — 7.9

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Considering Different Perspectives (CDP)

Average

14.2

Normal range

11.1 — 17.4

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Empathic Compassion (EC)

Average

14.6

Normal range

11.6 — 17.6

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Social Responsibility (SR)

Average

19.9

Normal range

15 — 24.8

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Moral reasoning (Mr)

Average

11.5

Normal range

9.5 — 13.4

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

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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.

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WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

About This Assessment

Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) Test - Symptoms and Signs

prosociality

This measure is used to assess individual differences in prosocial tendencies and related dispositions. The Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) is intended to provide a brief, structured self-report profile relevant to helping-oriented attitudes and interpersonal concern (Gustavo Carlo).

The instrument consists of 30 items and typically requires about 6 minutes to complete. Item content focuses on enduring patterns of empathy, social responsibility, and regard for others’ welfare, supporting clinical interpretation of prosocial orientation and associated interpersonal functioning. In applied settings, the Prosocial Personality Battery (PSB) may be used as an adjunct to broader psychological evaluation to inform case conceptualization, treatment planning, or selection and placement decisions when prosocial behavior is a relevant construct.

Author: Gustavo Carlo, Nancy Eisenberg

Literature: Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Spinrad, T. L. Prosocial development. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development. Wiley. 2006.; Penner, L. A., Fritzsche, B. A., Craiger, J. P., & Freifeld, T. S. Measuring the prosocial personality. In J. N. Butcher & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 10). Erlbaum. 1995.