If you scored between 0 and 3.8, you tend toward the sanguine (cheerfully optimistic).
If you scored between 3.9 and 5.7, you tend to move easily between sanguine and bittersweet states (or to experience both states to moderate degrees).
If you scored between 5.8 and 10, you’re a true connoisseur of bittersweetness: the place where light and dark meet.
Readers of my book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking will be interested to know that exploratory studies by Yaden and Kaufman show a high correlation between high scorers on the Bittersweet Quiz and the trait identified by psychologist and author Dr. Elaine Aron as “high sensitivity”. (“Highly sensitive people” might be described as those who respond intensely to all that life offers, whether a screeching car alarm or a gorgeous sunset.) Yaden and Kaufman also found a high correlation with the tendency to “absorption”—which predicts creativity—and a moderate correlation with awe, self-transcendence, and spirituality. Finally, they found a small association with anxiety and depression.
Understand your temperament more deeply, by reading Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
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About the Bittersweet Quiz
No matter where you fall on this scale, you are never all one thing! Here I am at my most sanguine (left)—and in my more customary bittersweet mode (right).
Note to psychologists and other scholars interested in exploring the bittersweet construct: Susan Cain developed this quiz, excerpted from Bittersweet, in collaboration with research scientist Dr. David Yaden, a professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and cognitive scientist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, director of the Center for the Science of Human Potential. While the exploratory pilot studies conducted by Yaden and Kaufman assessed preliminary aspects of the items, they didn’t yet include other ways of validating them, such as focus groups, expert review, and larger sample exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. They encourage interested scholars to conduct more research on the survey items to further ascertain their psychometric properties. Please also know that this Quiz is not intended to measure or address mental illness in any way.
Understand your temperament more deeply.
Read Bittersweet
How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
An exploration of the power of a bittersweet, melancholic outlook on life, and why our culture has been so blind to its value.