About Pragmika

Pragmika started because I wanted to know how closed my own thinking really is. I'd been following arguments — political, philosophical, everyday — and noticed something: what tends to divide people isn't the position itself so much as the way they hold on to it. I got curious about whether you can actually measure that — not as a character flaw, but as a thinking style that helps in some contexts and gets in the way in others. Pragmika is my attempt at an honest answer to an uncomfortable question: how openly can I really think once I stop needing to be right?

Who's behind this

One person stands behind Pragmika: Christian Kienle, a frontend engineer based in Germany. The project is private and non-commercial — no client, no funding, no growth target. There's no newsletter, no advertising, no data handed to third parties. Results are scored anonymously and never tied to an account. Contact: kontakt@pragmika.com.

How the test measures

Pragmika measures along three dimensions: dogmatism, belief perseverance, and openness. It rests on four established research instruments. Milton Rokeachi – sourceMilton RokeachAmerican social psychologist (1918–1988). His Dogmatism Scale measures how closed a belief system is to pushback.Learn more ↗ (opens in a new tab) built the Dogmatism Scale to measure how rigid belief systems are put together. Keith Stanovichi – sourceKeith StanovichCanadian cognitive psychologist. He coined "Active Open-Minded Thinking" — the readiness to actively test your own assumptions.Learn more ↗ (opens in a new tab) used Active Open-Minded ThinkingActive Open-Minded Thinking The readiness to actively test your own assumptions and look for counter-evidence, instead of only gathering confirmation (Keith Stanovich). to study how ready someone is to question their own assumptions. John Cacioppoi – sourceJohn CacioppoAmerican psychologist (1951–2018). He developed the "Need for Cognition" measure: how much someone enjoys thinking things through.Learn more ↗ (opens in a new tab) used Need for CognitionNeed for cognition The enjoyment of thinking: some people like digging into hard questions instead of grabbing a quick, easy answer. to look at how much a person enjoys thinking hard in the first place. The scoring also sits in the judgment tradition of Kahneman and Tverskyi – sourceKahneman and TverskyTwo psychologists whose work on judgment showed how systematically mental shortcuts skew our decisions. Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics for it.Learn more ↗ (opens in a new tab), who mapped how mental shortcuts steer the way we judge things. On top of that comes the Aristotelian idea of phronesisPhronesis Practical wisdom: knowing when a principle applies and when it doesn't. Aristotle's term for good judgment in the moment. — practical wisdom, the judgment you bring to a single case when no rule quite fits.

What this test is not

• Not a clinical instrument. Pragmika gives no diagnosis, replaces no psychotherapeutic assessment, and says nothing about your mental health.
• Not a complete model. Three dimensions are one slice — not everything that thinking is. Creativity, empathy, and intuition don't show up here.
• Not a second scoring. Pragmika measures thinking style, not personality. If you want a Big FiveBig Five The best-established personality model in psychology, with five core dimensions. It measures personality, not thinking style. or HEXACOHEXACO A personality model with six dimensions — like the Big Five, but with an added axis for honesty and humility. profile, this isn't the place.
• Not a political test. No left-right mapping, no voting advice. Closed and open thinking styles turn up on every side of politics.
• Not a personality test. No MBTIMBTI The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which sorts people into 16 types. Popular but scientifically contested — and a different thing from a thinking style. type, no character typology. The test says nothing about who you are — only something about the way you're thinking right now.