Selfishness—people who don’t care about others or their feelings and will do or say anything as long as they get what they want.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
People’s need to feel superior to others. All it does is cause judgment and hate.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →Not listening to me.
Self-importance.
Looking down at other people. I was brought up to treat people as you treat yourself, with respect. The people you meet on the way up are the people you meet on the way down.
More from Bernadette Peters
View profile →I have a lot to be grateful for, but right now, being married. Having time to be with my husband and his children. I feel very grateful.
Honesty, trustworthiness, and a deep understanding of emotions.
I most admire Steve Sondheim, who is not alive anymore. But his words and music keep him alive.
A peaceful, joyous time in the world…or in my head.
More on values & belief
- Which living person do you most admire, and why? 406 answers
- What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? 79 answers
- What are you unwilling to optimise? 30 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 14 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 9 answers
Also answered this
Hans Zimmer, Daphne Guinness, Billy Crudup, David Hasselhoff, Jerry Lewis, Bob Schieffer
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All values & belief questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject