Built on the newest science of a good life
How good is your life, really? Find out in 12 questions.
Your free snapshot, today
Happiness. Meaning. Psychological richness. Research from the University of Chicago shows a good life is three different things — and most people are strong in some and short in others. Start with 12 free questions and see where you stand in minutes. For $9.99 you continue to the full 89-question survey — your 12 answers carry over — which adds personality, values, relationship habits and life experiences. Your partner takes it too, and you both get your own report plus a joint report, every score backed by the study it comes from.
The free test is 12 of the 89 questions. The full survey adds 77 more — the facets behind each score, a five-trait personality layer, and how the two of you spend your time — for $9.99, once.
Three dimensions, measured separately
One of them can be high while another is quietly empty.
Before 2022, psychology mostly split the good life in two: feeling good, and living purposefully. Oishi and Westgate's peer-reviewed contribution was showing that a large part of what people mean by a life well lived — adventure, a disorienting new perspective, a plot twist — isn't captured by either. Each dimension is scored on its own here, so a high one never hides a low one.
Happiness
How pleasant your life feels — the balance of good feelings over bad, and how satisfied you are with life overall. The dimension most “happiness” content already targets.
Meaning
How purposeful and coherent your life feels. Not the same as feeling good: a meaningful stretch of life can be miserable in the moment and still feel worthwhile in retrospect.
Psychological richness
How varied, novel and perspective-changing your life has been. The newest of the three — formally distinguished from the other two only in 2022, and the one most tests don't measure at all.
What you get
Start free. Go further for the price of two coffees.
Free, solo
A 12-question sample of a much larger survey — enough to see where you stand, not the whole picture.
- — 12 of the 89 questions, four per dimension
- — Three scores out of 100
- — One short written reflection on which dimension leads
The full survey
$9.99 onceThe complete 89-question instrument from the Three Lives Institute — more than seven times the free test, built for two people. Your 12 free answers carry over; you start at question 13.
- — All 89 questions: the three dimensions with their facets, a five-trait personality layer, and how you two actually spend time
- — Your full written individual report, kept private to you
- — Invite your partner; the joint view opens when you're both ready
- — Discussion prompts drawn from your own answers
- — The study behind every claim, named inline
One payment. No subscription. Secure checkout.
Built on the newest research
The science of a good life changed recently. Most tests haven't caught up.
In 2022, two professors proved a good life isn't just happiness and meaning. There's a third dimension: psychological richness. Every test you've taken measured the old two. This one measures all three.
A third dimension of a good life
Oishi & Westgate (2022), Psychological Review — Wegner Prize winner
Established psychological richness as a third, independent dimension. It is the spine of this test.
Which traits travel with well-being
Anglim et al. (2020), Psychological Bulletin — 334,567 people, 462 studies
The largest personality–well-being synthesis ever run. It powers the personality layer.
How partners shape each other
Aron; Drigotas, Rusbult & colleagues — the self-expansion research
Decades of work on how partners sculpt who each other becomes. It powers the two-partner sections.
Citation, not endorsement. The researchers named here are independent scientists with no connection to The Three Lives. They did not create, advise on, review or endorse this test, and are not affiliated with it. We cite their published, peer-reviewed findings and link to every paper. Where the evidence is thin, we say so, in the sentence that uses it.
Why you can trust it
Every claim carries its evidence, in the sentence that makes it.
This instrument came out of a seven-phase research process in which every source was verified from the primary paper — twice. Where a finding rests on one unreplicated study of 260 people, the report says exactly that, every time it appears. Where the original brief's own assumption turned out to be wrong, the model was rebuilt around what the papers actually found.
Read the research and the limits89 original questions, written for this instrument — no reused published scale items.
Your raw answers are never visible to your partner. Only computed scores are shared, and only when you both say you're ready.
No compatibility percentage, no letter grade, no personality “type.”
Plainly stated limits: unpiloted, not clinically validated, not normed for your country.
A few honest answers
Do I get a compatibility score?+
No, and that is deliberate. The evidence behind the different findings is different in kind, so averaging them into one number would misrepresent most of them. There is no field for a compatibility score anywhere in this system.
Can I take it on my own?+
Yes. The free version is solo by design, and the full report starts with your own profile before anything about the two of you appears. Your partner can join later with a link.
Does my partner see my answers?+
No. Raw answers stay private to you. Only computed scores become visible to your partner, and only after you both say you are ready to see it together.
Why $9.99?+
The free test is a 12-question sample. The full instrument is 89 questions taken by two people — more than seven times as many — and your $9.99 covers it once: your complete individual report, your partner's place in the joint view, and the named study behind every score. One payment, no subscription.
Is this a clinical test?+
No. It is not clinically validated, not diagnostic, and not a substitute for a therapist. The research page states every limit in plain language rather than hiding them in fine print.
Twelve questions is all it takes to start.
Take the free version now. If it tells you something you didn't already know, the full 89-question two-person survey and the joint report are one $9.99 payment away.