Is This A Personality Test?

Individual attempts to define the concept of ‘personality’ and the concept of ‘character’ have generated confusion in almost all psychological endeavors. Everyone instinctively knows that they are different, yet we also know that they are intertwined and interdependent.

The concept of personality has many meanings to various people. In an attempt to be able to more accurately describe what MindsIView does, we are going to define an individual’s personality as ‘the social and emotional characteristics displayed by a person when dealing with another person, the interactive traits that give an individual a unique social identity.’

Listed here are but a few examples of personality traits that a person could display when interacting with another person.

A person might be friendly, amiable, affectionate, sociable, benevolent, loving, gregarious, congenial, jovial, merry, affable, have a good sense of humor, be pleasant, agreeable, enjoyable, a pleasure to be around, cheerful, happy, jolly, merry, spirited, lively, light-hearted, giving, loving, tender, affectionate or they could be jealous, envious, grudging, resentful, suspicious, unfriendly, hostile, antagonistic, unkind, secluded, private, aloof, recluse, withdrawn, formal, conformist, hard, unyeilding, ugly, surly, threatening, unpleasant, offensive, repulsive, a pain to be around, depressed, miserable, sad, gloomy, grumpy, grouchy, sullen, cantankerous, cross, crabby, and irritable.

These are not traits or characteristics we would use if we were describing the way a person executes professional responsibilities or pursues the activities of a career. Some traits or characteristics we would use to describe these activities could be:
Respect for individuals, Honesty, Ambition, Problem solving ability, Proactive thinking, Self confidence, Goal focus, Persistence, Planning ability, Integrity, Attention to details, Seeing the ‘big picture’, etc.

However, we know that the execution of life activities, whether personal or professional, involves a combination of ‘personality’ and ‘character’ traits and this blending of traits produces the unique individual.

The American Heritage English Dictionary defines culture as, “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work or thought.” Alvin Toffler, author of The Third Wave, gives a very simplistic definition of culture by defining it as ‘how’ an organism or organization ‘does things’. Peter Drucker defines culture as, “the manner in which an organization conducts itself in order to accomplish its desired goals”.

Since the attributes/characteristics measured by MindsIView cannot be clearly defined as ‘personality’ or ‘character’, MindsIView has looked to other headings to define the attributes that belong to an individual’s cognitive structure. MindsIView defines this collection of the attributes in an individual’s cognitive structure as an individual’s ‘personal culture’. That is, the application of an individual’s cognitive structure against the activities of life result in the development of an individual’s ‘person culture’ or ‘how they do things’.

Listed below are a few examples of cognitive structure traits evaluated by MindsIView. As you will notice, these characteristics tend to be more closely identified with the concept that we call ‘character’, yet it is intuitively obvious that traits the world defines as ‘character’ are significantly impacted by the traits that are often defined as ‘personality’. Some examples are:
Attitude toward others, Goal focus, Long range planning, Problem solving, Relating with others, Seeing potential problems, Results oriented, Short range planning, Role confidence, Concrete organization, Persistence, Handling Stress, etc.

What Makes Us Unique?

According to our market research, all other psychological assessment instruments are designed to measure the behavioral preferences of a particular sample of people. That is, other instruments are developed by a group of individuals who; Invent a pool of items, transfer them into an assessment format, administer the formatted items to a sample of people, perform a statistical analysis to determine the items that cluster together or factor out, validate statistically the items that factor out, and use those conclusions to make predictive statements about the behavior of people.

There are several inherent problems with the development of instruments in this fashion. This procedure of empirical construction cannot prevent personal prejudices and biases from entering into the `invention` of items, the selection of `items' to support predisposed hunches and the process of human error in overlooking key components. Assessments developed under these criteria should be suspect, not from the procedures that are used in the evaluation, but from the basis of their development.

In addition to the potential problems and distortions that can exist in an empirically based evaluation, it is very difficult to keep the desired goals of the assessment from affecting the results. Most instruments claim that the identification and definition of the items that `cluster' together is entirely a statistical matter, yet they often `find' a basis for including items in the assessment that do not factor out or are not statistically valid.

The instruments used by MindsIView are not subject to this type of error since the relationships and comparisons used in the evaluation of an instrument are based in the axioms and theorems of transfinite mathematics. This mathematical base is the reason that we can now refer to the analysis of cognitive structures as a pure science and not the philosophical science that applies to the remainder of the psychological field.

If you have taken or examined the MindsIView instruments, it is obvious that it is different from other evaluation instruments. Each and every person will have ideas about which statements are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’, and each person will have their reasons why they think the way they do. In an open discussion concerning the ranking of statements, the disagreements will eventually be based in an ‘I think . . .’ logic. If you were asked to rank the numbers ‘3,2,4,1’ in ascending sequence, you would order them ‘1,2,3,4’ because in the abstract world of numerical representation, ‘1’ is always greater than ‘2’, etc. However, in the world of cognitive structures, each item or situation has multiple dimensions and the value an individual places on an object or statement depends on how they value the dimensions of that object/statement. This makes it possible for the individual to establish logical relationships, in their mind, between the statements of the instruments, but it makes it impossible for an individual to establish universally accepted logical relationships between the statements.

The science of transfinite mathematics establishes the order of relationships between the mathematical functions representing the number of permutations possible within the parameters of those functions. This ‘ordering of relationships’ is the same to the science of cognitive analysis as digital numbers are to real, finite mathematics. If, in the process of completing an instrument, an individual ordered the functions (i.e. – statements) in exactly the same order as the norm established in transfinite mathematics, that person would have a clear or ‘balanced’ view of events, objects, etc. In the process of evaluating an individual’s cognitive structure, MindsIView measures and calculates the distortions that occur between the individual’s ranking of the statements and the norm established in transfinite mathematics. If MindsIView operates under the assumption that an individual will order the statements as an honest representation of their beliefs then any attempt to logically impact the results of the test can only be achieved by ordering the statements in a fashion that is a distortion of how they actually think. If, in an honest representation, MindsIView is measuring perceptive distortions, then an attempt by an individual to distort the measurements will result in the distortion of pre-existing distortions. In other words, manipulations of the instrument produce badly skewed patterns.

the theorems behind our service

Our technology is an extension of the work of several brilliant men. G. E. Moore developed insights into the concepts of valuing, Georg Cantor developed the science of transfinite mathematics and Robert Hartman quantified Moore’s work and identified relationships to Cantor’s work.

G. E. Moore established principles concerning how we define an object as good. He realized that an object being defined as good was a quality established by the person evaluating an object, moral principle, etc. For example, if one were accustomed to sitting on the ground, one might consider a stool a good chair. However, if one were accustomed to sitting in a plush, overstuffed lounge chair, one might consider a stool a bad chair. Moore worked to establish principles of how individual valued objects and the components of valuing. He identified three categories that comprised the components of valuing – uniqueness, comparativeness and concepts. Applying these components to his son, Moore realized that his son had an unlimited number of qualities and that made him unique. He also realized that his son could be compared to other boys as being better or worse. In the component of concepts, his son also either fit or did not fit in the class of gender defined as male.

Based on the philosophical work of G. E. Moore, Dr. Robert Hartman identified the following categories (dimensions) of the way in which an individual would evaluate/value an object, idea, or any other event presented to them.

• Concepts: a concept has a specific, definable set of qualifying features and the subject of the evaluation either fills/completes this set of features or the subject does not belong in this concept. Moore’s son either was or was not a male
  
• Abstracts: this category also has a specific, definable set of qualifying features for the subject, but the subject is not required to fill/complete all of the features in order to be identified in this ‘class’ of subjects. It may be evaluated as a ‘good’ subject, a ‘bad’ subject or any number of variations of subjective valuation. This is the dimension of comparative values. When Moore compared his son, as a male, to the other boys with whom he associated, he would evaluate his son as ‘better’, ‘worse’, ‘about the same’, etc.
  
• Uniqueness: In order to be classed in this category, a subject must have an infinite number of qualifying features. This category consists of subjects that are ‘unique unto themselves’, that is, they are one of a kind, there is no other like them in the universe. Any number of comparative valuations is then used to value the subject. Moore’s child was not just a male, he was his son, he was unique in the world with an infinite number of qualifying features. However, Moore could also evaluate these features as compared to another child and consider them as being better, worse or any number of valuations.
  

Hartman’s search for a mathematical system that provided relationships between the dimensions he had identified led him to the work of Georg Cantor. Georg Cantor established the theorems and axioms for the mathematics of Set Theory, which he later extended to establish relationships between finite and infinite sets of numbers. According to Cantor:

• the finite set of numbers taken to a finite power was identified as the set of numbers N
  
• the finite set of numbers taken to an infinite power was identified as Alef
  
• the infinite set of numbers taken to an infinite power was identified as Alef One
  

Using mathematical principles from finite mathematics, Cantor proved that the value of ‘the combinations of sets of finite/infinite numbers’ was valued in the same manner as finite mathematics. That is, the numerical sets combinations producing the greatest number of numerical variables was given the highest value and the numerical sets combinations yielding the fewest of number of numerical variables was given the lowest value. Therefore, the set of numbers consisting solely of finite numbers [N ^(to the power of) N] would have a lower value than the set of numbers consisting of infinite numbers [Alef One ^(to the power of) Alef One].

Cantor identified three sets of numbers that had specific qualifying parameters and Hartman identified three dimensions that had corresponding numerical parameters. When Hartman applied Cantor’s mathematics to the dimensions that individuals use in the process of valuing a subject, he established the following equalities.

• Hartman’s dimension of Concepts corresponded with Cantor’s set of N. Hartman’s definition of the dimension of a concept has a definable number of attributes and the item either does or does not fit in that concept. Cantor’s definition of a set of numbers N is a set that is composed of finite numbers taken to a finite power. For the purpose of simplification, from this point on, the dimension of concepts will be referred to as black or white functions.
  
• Hartman’s dimension of Abstracts corresponded with Cantor’s set of Alef. Hartman’s definition of the dimension of an abstract has a definable number of attributes and the item is valued in comparative terms so it has an infinite number of comparative attributes that can be assigned to it. Cantor’s definition of a set of numbers Alef is a set that is composed of finite numbers taken to an infinite power. The dimension of abstracts will be referred to as comparative functions.
  
• Hartman’s dimension of Uniqueness corresponded with Cantor’s set of Alef One. Hartman’s definition of the dimension of uniqueness has an infinite number of attributes and the item is valued in comparative terms so it has an infinite number of comparative attributes that can be assigned to it. Cantor’s definition of a set of numbers Alef One is a set that is composed of infinite numbers taken to a infinite power. The dimension of uniqueness will be referred to as unique functions.
  

Hartman then developed instruments that were made up of verbal statements, each statement representing a mathematical function from the norms established in transfinite mathematics. The data representing the cognitive structure of an individual is collected by allowing an individual to order these statements in a free form format, from their perspective of best statement to worst statement. The individual’s ordering of the statements is then analyzed against the norm established in transfinite mathematics.

Each page of the instrument is a forced-rank closed system, therefore, each statement must be given its own unique ranking, no two statements can have the same rank, there cannot be two statements ranked as #1 or three statements ranked as #5, etc. The perceived value of each statement to the individual and the order in which these statements are ranked (by being compared to each other), generates a series of patterns that is a representation of ‘how’ a person thinks, that is, the individual’s cognitive structure. Each statement of the instrument becomes a part of a series of patterns that are compared to the norms established in transfinite mathematics and are the keys that are used in the evaluation and interpretation of the individual’s cognitive structure. Statement patterns are used in evaluation and no single statement has the ability to produce a significant impact on an individual’s evaluation.

Hartman identified a mathematical system that was capable of measuring and establishing relationships between the dimensions of valuing. He also established basic interpretations of how the scores effected the actions of an individual.

MindsIView has advanced this work in several areas.

• We've developed new instruments containing statements that are more easily understood by the applicant.
  
• We've taken the basic scoring developed by Hartman and developed interpretive algorithms that convert the mathematical scores into an evaluation of an individual’s personal culture or how they do things.
  
• We've taken these scores and produced functional reports that can be used to improve the performance of an individual or to predict the performance of a job applicant.
  
• We've developed different instruments to determine how experience and education will produce a modification of perceptions and behavior in a particular discipline.
  

Dr. Hartman established the theorems of the science of cognitive structure measurement, MindsIView has taken these theorems and developed practical applications. This new science provides a measuring system that is isomorphic with an individual’s cognitive structure and symbolically formulates the vast field of personal values (cultures), reflecting in systematic detail what philosophers have said about cognitive structures (valuing, perceptions, personal cultures, etc.) and more significantly, what they have not said.

what is the hartman value profile?

Five decades of research went into creating the Hartman Value Profile. This mathematical system accurately and objectively analyzes how your "values" effect your performance.

Dr. Robert S. Hartman was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his contributions in value measurement using Axiology. Hartman's "Value Profile" makes it possible for you to identify your underlying talents and development needs.

Over 100 studies have been used to validate the Axiological model including an extensive study using a database of over 40,000 people from executives to entry level workers. The Hartman Value Profile meets all of the EEOC requirements.

For more on Dr. Hartman and his work with axiology, click here for his wikipedia entry.

welcome

Welcome readers to the MindsIView blog! This blog is about value profiles personal assessments. We'll be talking a lot about our personal assessment website MindsIView.com. The assessments on our site are based on the Hartman Value Profile. Check out our site if you'd like to find out more about your personality, how you think, and what motivates you.