THOMAS TECHNOLOGIES -- May 1 -- Thomas Technologies, a leader in private-label behavioral assessment software and related reporting, unveiled its new site ThomasKnowsPeople.com. The new site offers a variety of information including Thomas' personality assessment solutions for members and subscribers of web dating and career sites. For 30 years Thomas has assisted a wide range of partners including web-dating and career sites with assessment technology in 50+ countries and 22 languages.
The full article was originally published at Thomas Technologies, but is no longer available.
They use the Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) a DISC-based system. In the 1920's, Harvard-trained psychologist and lawyer William Moulton Marston (PhD) developed a theory to better understand human emotional responses. To test his theories, Marston proposed four factors he viewed as the cornerstones of personality: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. It is from these four factors that DISC theory takes its name.
The PPA is a forced-choice ipsative instrument, meaning that it describes the individual in a self-referential way ( i.e.: against themselves).
Normative instruments by comparison are inter-individual, meaning they describe the individuals against a norm group.
The forced-choice format was developed to minimize the bias introduced by
the effects of social desirability and response style. Requiring respondents to answer with only MOST or LEAST, effectively eliminates response variance.
The compatibility report is only a written one (as many online dating sites are offering or plan to offer). Imagine to read hundreds and hundreds or written reports, it could be impossible to determine which ones suit better!!!
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Why DISC will not work enough for online dating sites with big databases?
Using DISC, 4 variables 10 degrees, the Ensemble (the whole set of different possibilities) is 10*10*10*10 == 1 * 10^4 == 10,000 of different possibilities (personality types). Other DISC reports use 4 variables 7 degrees and the Ensemble is 7*7*7*7 == 2,401 different possibilities,
You could also see more info at
http://www.discprofile.com/whatisdisc.htm
Note that other online dating sites use a Big-7 model / dimensions of personality: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Self-Esteem and Self-Doubt; 10 degrees
per variable, the Ensemble is 10*10*10*10*10*10*10 == 1 * 10^7 == 10,000,000 different possibilities (personality types).
ONE THOUSAND BIGGER!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]
Posted by: Fernando Ardenghi | May 11, 2006 at 08:01 PM
Despite its popularity, the DISC has not been validated with Item Response Theory and has not been proven to meet professional testing standards.
Furthermore, high quality instruments have long abandoned the ipsative approach because it creates artifical factor structures and spurious correlations. There are more effective ways to counter the effects of social desirability biases.
Thx,
James Houran, PhD
Online Dating Magazine
Posted by: James Houran | May 13, 2006 at 11:31 AM