How Alike Are You and Your Dad?

This quiz answers that question trait by trait. You might have his laugh and his habit of checking the door is locked twice, and still be nothing like him when it comes to parties. Personality is passed down in patches, and this quiz shows you which patches you got.

It compares the two of you on five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional sensitivity. Those are the five traits of the Big Five, the model used in personality research, so you are comparing the things that genuinely make up a personality, not your taste in music.

The result is a side-by-side picture of where you match and where you split. It is quick enough to do over a cup of tea, and interesting enough to keep you talking long after the cup is empty.

Most families have a running theory about who takes after whom. This quiz tests it. Sometimes it confirms what everyone already said at every Christmas. Sometimes it shows that the child everyone calls "just like their dad" is actually his opposite on the trait that matters most.

You take it first, then send your dad a link. He answers the same ten questions on his own phone, whenever suits him. Once you have both finished, you both see the comparison.

Neither of you sees what the other tapped. You see how close you are on each trait, not how he answered "I enjoy being the centre of attention". That keeps it honest and stops it turning into a debate about one question.

It works for anyone you call dad: a stepdad, a grandad who brought you up, or a father-in-law, if you are brave.

Your headline result is the trait the two of you share most. It can be any of these five.

• Openness: you share the same appetite for new ideas, places and food, or the same happy loyalty to what you know. Either way, you will agree on the holiday.
• Conscientiousness: you handle plans and promises the same way. Both of you finish what you start, or both of you leave the packing until the last minute.
• Extraversion: you have the same social battery. You both work the room at a wedding, or you both find each other in the quiet corner.
• Agreeableness: you approach other people the same way, both quick to compromise or both happy to win the argument.
• Emotional sensitivity: you react to stress the same way, both steady in a crisis or both feeling it deeply and spotting trouble early.

Your result also shows the trait where you are furthest apart, which is usually the one behind your best-loved family arguments.

We use our own proprietary structure: the short Big Five block, two statements for each of the five traits. For each trait we compare your answers with your dad's and turn the gap into a similarity score from 0 to 100.

The trait with the highest similarity is the one you share most, and that is the line you can share publicly. The one with the lowest similarity is where you differ most, and it stays on your results page.

Partly, yes. Personality comes from a mix of what you are born with and how you grow up, and your dad usually contributes to both. Some of what you share came with you, and some you absorbed from years of watching how he handled a burnt dinner, a flat tyre or a family argument.

That is why the overlap can be surprising in both directions. You might share his deep need for quiet after a busy day without ever having talked about it. Or you might be his opposite on sociability because you grew up watching him work the room and decided it was not for you.

This quiz does not try to separate the two. It simply shows where you have ended up, side by side, as two adults. That is often the more interesting question anyway: not where a trait came from, but what it is like to share it now.

Take both quizzes and you will know. Send this one to your dad and the mum version to your mum, then compare the two results side by side.

Most people find they take after one parent on some traits and the other on the rest. You might have your dad's calm under pressure and your mum's need for a plan. Seeing it laid out trait by trait is far more interesting than the usual family verdict of "you are just like your father".

Talk about them. The trait you share most is a good starting point for stories: the time you both took charge at a family crisis, or both disappeared from the same party. The trait where you differ most explains a lot of old friction, and naming it can make it funny rather than frustrating.

It is also a good way into a conversation that dads and their children do not always find easy. Asking "were you always like this?" about a shared trait opens up stories you may never have heard. It makes a good Father's Day or birthday gift, too: a few minutes each and something to talk about over the next pint or cup of tea.

If you want the full picture of your own personality, take the full Big Five test next. It uses fifty questions instead of ten and gives you a detailed profile on all five traits.