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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.

How bittersweet are you, at this moment in time?

Take our 15-question test to find out! It takes about three minutes to complete.

The purpose of the Bittersweet Quiz (and the Bittersweet book) is to help you assess whether you tend to be more sanguine or bittersweet in your orientation—and to gain insight into your way of being, and into the often-overlooked powers of bittersweetness.

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It’s also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.

There is no right or wrong way to be. There is only who you are, at this moment in time. (Some of us become more bittersweet with age, or after facing life’s trials and triumphs.)

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.

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Susan's Latest Masterpiece:

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.