What Sets the CVI Apart

If you have ever taken a psychometric test other than the Core Values Index™, you'll know there's a huge difference between the CVI and all the rest. In this article we explore the reasons why the CVI stands apart from — and above — the competition.

Mittens for Snakes

"If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?"

"True or false: Sometimes I don't feel as happy as I'd prefer."

"On a scale of 1 to 5, how likely are you to take a company-provided pen home with you?"

What do these questions have in common?

They are examples of the wide variety of personality tests and psychometric assessments available today. What else do they have in common?

They are as useless as mittens for snakes.

The business world is rife with tools and assessments designed — according to the vendors' marketing department — to determine and categorize an individual's personality type. These assessments are also used to calculate the risk of undesirable behavior.

For example, the third question asks the individual to rank their likelihood of stealing from the company. It would most likely be part of a screening test during the application process. The question's intent is obvious, and if you want the job your answer is clear.

The problem with questions like these is the intent or desired answer is easy to determine. This gives you the opportunity to deliberately skew your results in a particular direction.

Other questions, such as the true or false sample, leave the individual with a binary choice about something that is rarely if ever binary, or at the very least transitory — your answer will change from one day to the next based on your mood at the time.

How can such a limited yet moving target accurately reflect the core and unchanging nature of your personality? It can't.

The first example regarding fruit is both 100% subjective and 100% useless.

How would being a grapefruit or a banana impact your ability to lead a team of software developers?

The Core Values Index Does It Differently

The CVI takes a different approach. The first thing most people notice when taking the Core Values Index psychometric assessment is it doesn't ask long-form questions like the examples given above.

Instead, you are presented with words in groups of four and you pick the two words you feel reflect you the most. Another way to think of it is you are picking the two words that resonate with you the most. The trick is to make your choice without spending too much time thinking about it. Faster and more instinctive answers are better.

You move through a series of these four-word groups, always picking two, until you're done. The total time to complete the CVI averages about 8 minutes. Most of the other psychometric assessments on the market take much longer, some well over an hour, and some even require a moderator or facilitator to administer the assessment.

Most mainstream psychometric assessments, some you've probably heard of, are more expensive than the CVI.

The goal of the Core Values Index is to accurately and reliably reflect your innate and unchanging nature, the core of your personality — what we sometimes refer to as your personality's DNA. It does this by analyzing your word choices.

Take a guess why "pick two of the following four words" would be more accurate than "True or false: Sometimes I feel inadequate."

The words used in the CVI have been carefully and painstakingly chosen to reveal core aspects of your personality. Their purpose isn't obvious or easy to discern so it's very unlikely you can skew or deliberately manipulate your assessment results.

The words are also chosen randomly from a large pool, which further reduces the likelihood of narrowed or skewed results.

Once your words have been chosen, a highly accurate algorithm analyzes your selections and calculates how much of four personality types called core value energies exist within your personality profile.

Instead of results that say "You are a type YELLOW-FOUR-APPLE-INTUITIVE" in concrete terms ("You are a type"), the CVI instead reveals the ratio of four core value energies within your personality profile.

How CVI Scores Work

Your scores for each of the four core value energies can range from 0 (none present) to 36 (maximum present). The sum of your four core value energies is exactly 72. This means that if one core value energy score in your CVI profile is high, one or more of the other core value energy scores will be proportionally lower.

The four core value energies are:

• Builder - power and faith/confidence
• Merchant - love and connection/community
• Innovator - wisdom/problem solving and compassion
• Banker - knowledge/information and justice

Your CVI profile doesn't say you are a Builder-type, for instance. Instead, for example, it says your profile has 15 points of Builder energy, 13 points of Merchant energy, 27 points of Innovator energy, and 17 points of Banker energy (this is my CVI profile, actually: 27-Innovator, 17-Banker, 15-Builder, 13-Merchant).

→ Take the CVI here to find out what your scores are.

If you do the math, you'll soon realize there are many millions of different CVI score combinations.

How much a core value energy exists within your CVI profile reveals a lot about your personality as a whole. The order of these energies plays a big part as well. Those who are Innovator/Bankers like me will see the world through a different lens and prefer to operate within it differently than those who are Banker/Innovators.

Proportion matters, too. Someone who is a 27-Innovator/17-Banker like me has some meaningful differences in their personality compared to someone who is a 23-Innovator/21-Banker.

Repeat Reliability and Accuracy

One of the best ways to quantifiably measure the accuracy and reliability of a psychometric assessment is through a repeat reliability score. This answers the question: If you take the assessment today and again in X years, how similar will your results be?

In some rather famous personality tests, your results can vary from one hour to the next. That's not very accurate.

The Core Values Index, on the other hand, has the highest repeat reliability rating of any psychometric assessment on the market today, 97.7%, as determined in longitudinal studies.¹

If you take the CVI today and again in 10 years, your scores are likely to differ by less than 3%.

Here's one more fact about the CVI: If you take the Core Values Index assessment at eRep.com and are not completely satisfied within 10 days, you can get your money back. That's a 100% reduction in risk for something that only takes 8 minutes of your time.

NOTES

1. Source: Seattle Research Partners, 2014 [PDF]

Core Values Index™ and CVI™ are trademarks of Taylor Protocols, Inc.