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About Psychometric Testing

The accepted premise is that personality is an inherited complex of traits that controlled our behaviour in the past, controls it at present and will in the future.

Since many of the traits are temporarily fixed and measurable, we can assess people to determine their preferred behavioural styles. The most common is the five-factor model, also known as the "Big Five", which identifies five personality dimensions called OCEAN:

Research psychologists generally agree that the empirical evidence strongly supports the conclusion that human personality can be described by five factors.

While these five factors have been given various names, we have chosen to label them as CLUES, an easily-remembered acronym that precisely captures their intended usage – CLUES about the nature of the person under scrutiny.

These five independent factors, each of which is found to be normally distributed across large groups of adults, are:

Conscientious:

Describes the degree to which the individual is persistent, organized and motivated ranging from being highly disciplined and dependable to being carefree and lackadaisical.

Likeable:

Describes the degree to which the person is pleasant and agreeable, ranging from being warm, tolerant, and tactful, to being tough-minded, assertive, skeptical and direct.

Unconventional:

Involves the degree to which the person is open to new ideas, is adventurous, ranging from being unstructured, curious, and venturesome, to being predictable, rules oriented, closed, and structured.

Extroverted:

Describes the sources and focus of an individual's emotional energy, ranging from being outgoing, dominant, ambitious, and sociable, to being introverted, shy, and quiet.

Stable:

Involves the degree to which an individual is emotionally stable and resistant to stress, ranging from being well-adjusted, calm, self-confident, and poised, to being nervous and anxious.