Test · Moods

PANAS Test

Two separate readings of how the past week has felt, energy and unease, side by side and without judgment. It takes about four minutes.

≈4 min Questions: 20

A small brown pony standing in a wooden stable doorway among hay bales and flower pots, with a lantern on the wall.

You know that feeling when someone asks how you are and “fine” comes out before you have checked? This test does not decide whether you are a good person or a bad one; it looks at how the last stretch has felt, in general over the past week or so, and not this minute. For each question pick the answer that fits closest, even if none is perfect. It takes about four minutes, and at the end you see two separate readings, one for energy and one for unease, each on its own scale. Which of the two has been louder lately?

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Lately, how did it feel to be in the middle of whatever you were doing?
This past week, when something odd or interesting happened around you, what did you do with it?
Think of the routine jobs of the last several days: the dishes, the commute, the inbox. How present were you for them?
Across these days, what was your energy like from the moment you got up?
In general over the past week, how clear was your thinking when you read something or made a small decision?
Over the last week, what was it like to get started on something, such as a job or a call you had been putting off?
During these past days, was there something you truly cared about doing? How strongly did it pull at you?
When something you were working on got hard lately, what did you do?
Looking back over the past week or so, did you do something that made you feel proud? A finished job, a hard call, a small win.
Was there news or an event in the last few days that lifted your mood? A message, a surprise, a stroke of luck.
In your downtime lately, did you feel keyed up or on edge, as if waiting for something?
How did your body feel over the past week or so? Think of your legs, hands and shoulders when you were sitting or waiting.
When something shook you lately, like a sharp email or a scare in traffic, how did the settling down go?
Compared with your usual self, how did you handle small frictions with other people this past week? A slow reply, a loud call, an offhand remark.
Think of everyday annoyances that involve nobody else: a jammed printer, a slow website, a stuck lid. How did they land on you these days?
Over the past week or so, did something you did or failed to do weigh on you with guilt? A canceled plan, a message you never answered.
In general lately, how did you talk to yourself in your head? Think of the tone overall rather than any one event.
These days, was there something coming up, or something that might happen, that made you apprehensive?
Lately, did a wave of fear or dread ever arrive out of nowhere, with nothing you could point to?
Think of one thing you had to face lately, such as a meeting, a call or an appointment. How did you feel just before it?

Maryna Lyadneva psychologist

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How this test works

Where the questions come from, what the scale rests on, and why the result is not a diagnosis.

Recent positive and negative feeling, measured as two separate readings over roughly the past week: energized engagement and unpleasant unease.

Author Maryna Lyadneva

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Methodology

Twenty everyday scenes make up the test, ten for each of two feelings: the energized, engaged kind and the uncomfortable kind, which covers unease, irritation, guilt and apprehension. Every question looks back over roughly the past week, so the answers describe a stretch of time and not this exact minute.

Each feeling gets its own result, because the two vary largely independently of each other. A week may lean toward one, hold plenty of both, or hold little of either, and all of these are ordinary.

The test follows the two-factor picture of mood found in published psychology research; see the dictionary entry on positive and negative affect. The wording of every question and answer is original to this test.

Self-report has built-in limits: people describe a week as they remember it, so the result is a snapshot of recent feeling and not a measurement from outside. It does not show how stressful life has been, how well you handle emotions, or how attuned you are to what other people feel.

The test is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace a specialist. It reads recent feeling only. Depression, anxiety or any other condition is beyond what it can show, and it cannot tell one from another. For that kind of question, a mental health professional is the one to ask.

Questions

Can a good week and a tense week be the same week?

Yes. The two readings run mostly separately, so a week can lean toward one, hold plenty of both, or hold little of either. None of these is unusual.

Does this show whether I have depression or anxiety?

No. It looks at how the last week felt, nothing more. It offers no diagnosis and cannot separate one condition from another. Bring that question to a mental health professional.

Why do I see two results instead of one?

Energy and unease are different feelings. One line follows how lively and engaged the week felt, the other follows how uncomfortable it felt, and merging them into a single figure would hide both.

Is this a copy of a known questionnaire?

No. The questions were written new for this page, using what published research says about these two kinds of feeling.

Sources
  1. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063
  2. Crawford, J. R., & Henry, J. D. (2004). The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS): Construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical sample. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43(3), 245–265. doi:10.1348/0144665031752934
  3. Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 219–235. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.219