Evidence
The Research Base
The theoretical models, research, and design methodology behind every assessment.
Every construct measured by these assessments is grounded in published, peer-reviewed behavioural science. This page sets out the specific theories, models, and research findings that inform the design of each instrument: what the research says, how we use it, and why we chose it over alternatives. We don't use proprietary frameworks, unvalidated models, or pseudoscientific constructs. No personality types. No colour systems. No four-letter codes. The references below are published in peer-reviewed journals and are independently verifiable.
How the assessments are designed
Social desirability bias
Self-report instruments are vulnerable to social desirability bias: the tendency to respond in ways that present the individual favourably (Paulhus, 1991). This is a well-documented limitation of any questionnaire that asks people to evaluate their own qualities. In workplace assessments, where people suspect their answers may affect how they're managed, the effect is amplified.
The conventional countermeasure is lie scales or impression management subscales, which attempt to detect socially desirable responding after the fact. Evidence for their effectiveness is weak (Ones, Viswesvaran & Reiss, 1996).
How we use it
Rather than detecting faking after the fact, we design items that remove the desirability gradient. Items are framed as forced-choice preferences between equally neutral options ("Do you prefer public or private recognition?") or as situational judgement items where the response options describe different behavioural tendencies, not better and worse answers. For constructs where direct self-assessment is unreliable (coachability, emotional regulation, conflict style), we use scenario-based items drawn from the Situational Judgement Test methodology, which shows higher predictive validity than trait self-report for workplace behaviour (McDaniel, Morgeson, Finnegan, Campion & Braverman, 2001).
Why this approach
Lie scales treat faking as a detection problem. We treat it as a design problem. If the item has no right answer, there's nothing to fake.
Paulhus, D. L. (1991). Measurement and control of response bias. In J. P. Robinson et al. (Eds.), Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes. Academic Press.
Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C. & Reiss, A. D. (1996). Role of social desirability in personality testing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(6), 660-679.
McDaniel, M. A., Morgeson, F. P., Finnegan, E. B., Campion, M. A. & Braverman, E. P. (2001). Use of situational judgment tests to predict job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(4), 730-740.
Conditional measurement
Traditional personality assessment treats constructs as stable traits: a person is "high" or "low" on a given dimension regardless of context. Behavioural evidence consistently challenges this. Mischel (1968) demonstrated that cross-situational consistency in behaviour is much lower than trait theory predicts. Mischel and Shoda (1995) subsequently proposed a cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS) model, introducing the concept of if-then behavioural signatures: stable patterns of behaviour that are contingent on situational features.
How we use it
The assessments measure conditional patterns rather than collapsing behaviour into a single trait score. Coachability is not measured as a single dimension. It is mapped by source (peer, manager, customer), by type (technical correction, behavioural feedback), and by delivery context (public, private). The output describes a profile of tendencies across contexts, not a fixed label.
Why this approach
A single coachability score tells a manager nothing useful. Knowing that someone takes technical feedback well from peers but shuts down when a manager gives behavioural feedback in public tells them exactly how to adjust.
Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and Assessment. Wiley.
Mischel, W. & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: reconceptualising situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102(2), 246-268.
How Do I Come Across
Theoretical foundations: self-other knowledge asymmetry, the Johari Window, conflict mode theory, and self-monitoring.
Self-Other Knowledge Asymmetry (SOKA)
People are not equally accurate judges of all aspects of their own personality. Vazire (2010) proposed the Self-Other Knowledge Asymmetry model, which predicts when the self or others will be more accurate based on two properties of the trait being judged: observability (how visible the trait is to others) and evaluativeness (how socially desirable it is to possess the trait).
In a study of 165 participants rated by four friends and up to four strangers, with behavioural criterion measures derived from a battery of standardised tests, Vazire found three patterns. The self was the most accurate judge of traits low in observability, such as neuroticism and anxiety. Others were more accurate than the self for traits high in evaluativeness, such as intellect and creativity. For traits high in observability but low in evaluativeness, such as extraversion, self and other accuracy converged.
The mechanism: for evaluative traits, ego-protective biases distort self-ratings more than they distort other-ratings. You can't objectively judge how warm, competent, or assertive you are because your self-image has a stake in the answer.
How we use it
The assessment targets the quadrant where self-perception is least reliable: traits that are both highly observable and highly evaluative. Specifically: warmth, directness, assertiveness, emotional control, and interpersonal impact. These are the dimensions where the gap between self-perception and actual impact is widest, and where that gap causes the most workplace friction.
Why this model
SOKA provides a specific, testable framework for predicting where blind spots will occur. It doesn't just say "people have blind spots." It predicts which traits will produce blind spots, and the predictions hold up empirically.
Vazire, S. (2010). Who knows what about a person? The self-other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281-300.
The Johari Window
The Johari Window (Luft & Ingham, 1955) is a four-quadrant model of interpersonal awareness. The open area contains traits known to both self and others. The hidden area contains traits known to the self but not to others. The blind spot contains traits visible to others but not to the self. The unknown area contains traits known to neither.
How we use it
The assessment targets the blind spot quadrant. It does this through internal calibration: comparing explicit self-ratings on key dimensions (Domain 5) against the behavioural patterns revealed by the respondent's own scenario responses in Domains 1 through 4. Where the self-rating diverges from the scenario-derived profile, a perception gap is flagged.
This approach avoids the practical and methodological limitations of 360-degree feedback: rater bias, leniency effects, political responding, and logistical complexity. The person's own responses provide both data points.
Why this framework
The Johari Window is a heuristic, not a validated psychometric model. We use it as an organising principle for the category of insight the assessment produces, not as a measurement model. We are explicit about this distinction.
Luft, J. & Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari Window: a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development, UCLA.
Conflict mode theory
Thomas and Kilmann (1974) modelled conflict-handling behaviour along two orthogonal dimensions: assertiveness (the degree to which a person pursues their own concerns) and cooperativeness (the degree to which they attempt to satisfy the other party's concerns). The interaction produces five modes: competing (high assertiveness, low cooperativeness), collaborating (high on both), compromising (moderate on both), avoiding (low on both), and accommodating (low assertiveness, high cooperativeness). The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument has been administered over 10 million times and is one of the most widely used conflict assessment tools in organisational psychology.
How we use it
Domain 3 uses the assertiveness-cooperativeness dimensional model to inform scenario construction and scoring logic. The assessment does not replicate the TKI. It uses the underlying framework to map what someone actually does in disagreement situations, and then compares this against their self-described conflict style. Research consistently shows that people are poor judges of their own conflict approach. Avoidant and accommodating individuals in particular tend to describe themselves as collaborative.
Why this model
The two-dimensional framework is parsimonious, well-validated, and produces behaviourally distinct categories. It avoids the false precision of models that claim to identify more conflict styles than the data supports.
Thomas, K. W. & Kilmann, R. H. (1974). Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Xicom.
Kilmann, R. H. & Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: the "MODE" instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37(2), 309-325.
Self-monitoring
Snyder (1974) proposed self-monitoring as a construct describing the extent to which individuals observe and regulate their expressive behaviour and self-presentation. High self-monitors are attentive to situational cues and adjust their behaviour to fit social expectations. Low self-monitors behave more consistently across situations, guided by internal states and dispositions rather than external cues.
How we use it
Domain 6 measures self-monitoring level and cross-references it against actual behavioural flexibility demonstrated in scenario responses. This produces four distinct profiles. High monitoring with high flexibility: effective, conscious adaptation. High monitoring with low flexibility: awareness of impact without behavioural change. Low monitoring with high flexibility: instinctive adaptation without conscious awareness. Low monitoring with low flexibility: consistent but potentially rigid. Each has different implications for interpersonal impact.
Why this construct
Self-monitoring level moderates the practical value of the assessment's other findings. A person with high self-monitoring and a perception gap is likely to act on the finding. A person with low self-monitoring and the same gap may not, because they're less attuned to the social signal in the first place. The management implications differ accordingly.
Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4), 526-537.
Luxury Fit
Theoretical foundations: person-environment fit theory, emotional labour theory, and service orientation research.
Person-Environment Fit
Kristof (1996) published an integrative review of person-organisation fit in Personnel Psychology, defining P-O fit as "the compatibility between people and organisations that occurs when: (a) at least one entity provides what the other needs, or (b) they share similar fundamental characteristics, or (c) both." Within this framework, the most relevant dimension for the Luxury Fit assessment is demands-abilities fit: the degree to which an individual's capacities match what the environment demands of them.
Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson (2005) conducted a meta-analysis across 172 studies examining the consequences of fit at work. They found that person-organisation fit significantly predicted job satisfaction (corrected r = .44), organisational commitment (r = .51), and intent to quit (r = -.35). Demands-abilities fit specifically predicted job performance and strain outcomes beyond what supplementary fit (value congruence) alone could account for.
How we use it
The luxury service environment makes specific, measurable demands that differ qualitatively from standard customer service: sustained emotional performance, instinctive aesthetic sensitivity, composure under constant scrutiny, social navigation of wealth and deference, and instinctive discretion. The assessment operationalises these as six fit dimensions and measures the match between the individual's natural tendencies and each specific demand.
Why this model
Person-environment fit theory shifts the question from "is this person good?" to "does this person match this environment?" That reframing is central to what Luxury Fit measures. A low fit score is not a judgement on the individual. It means a different environment would be a better use of their strengths.
Kristof, A. L. (1996). Person-organization fit: an integrative review of its conceptualizations, measurement, and implications. Personnel Psychology, 49(1), 1-49.
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D. & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals' fit at work: a meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281-342.
Emotional labour theory
Hochschild (1983) defined emotional labour as "the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display" performed as part of a paid role. Studying flight attendants and bill collectors, she identified two regulation strategies with fundamentally different psychological costs.
Surface acting: the individual modifies their outward expression without changing their internal emotional state. They feel one thing and display another. Subsequent research has consistently linked surface acting to emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced job satisfaction.
Deep acting: the individual actively works to generate the required emotion internally, so the display is authentic rather than performed. Deep acting is associated with significantly lower emotional exhaustion and higher personal accomplishment than surface acting.
Hülsheger and Schewe (2011) published a meta-analysis of three decades of emotional labour research, confirming that surface acting is reliably associated with negative wellbeing outcomes while deep acting shows a weaker and sometimes positive relationship with wellbeing. Grandey (2003) found that surface acting predicted peer-rated service delivery quality: the people performing emotions without feeling them delivered measurably worse service, as rated by colleagues.
Diefendorff, Croyle and Gosserand (2005) identified a third regulation strategy, automatic regulation, where the required emotional display occurs naturally without conscious effort. This is the lowest-cost strategy and is most likely when person-environment fit on the emotional labour dimension is high.
How we use it
The Luxury Fit assessment measures emotional labour capacity across regulation strategy (surface, deep, or automatic), recovery speed between demanding interactions, and depletion awareness. In luxury environments, where emotional performance must be sustained across extended, high-stakes interactions with discerning clients, the distinction between surface and deep acting is the difference between someone who can sustain the role and someone who will burn out.
Why this model
Emotional labour is the most psychologically costly dimension of luxury service work. Hochschild's framework, refined by three decades of subsequent research, provides a specific, measurable way to assess whether someone's emotional regulation approach is sustainable in a high-demand environment.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
Grandey, A. A. (2003). When "the show must go on": surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1), 86-96.
Hülsheger, U. R. & Schewe, A. F. (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: a meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(3), 361-389.
Diefendorff, J. M., Croyle, M. H. & Gosserand, R. H. (2005). The dimensionality and antecedents of emotional labor strategies. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66(2), 339-357.
Service orientation
Hogan, Hogan and Busch (1984) defined service orientation as a dispositional tendency to be helpful, thoughtful, and cooperative, and published a measure for it in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Subsequent hospitality research has drawn a distinction between intrinsic service orientation, where the desire to serve is internally rewarding, and performed service orientation, where the individual can deliver service behaviour without the underlying disposition.
How we use it
In luxury contexts, this distinction is critical. Both types produce adequate service behaviour in the short term. Over time, performed service orientation depletes emotional resources because the behaviour requires continuous conscious effort rather than flowing from natural inclination. The assessment measures the motivational drivers behind service behaviour, not just the behaviour itself. It distinguishes between someone who anticipates client needs because they genuinely want to and someone who does it because they've been trained to.
Why this construct
Service orientation is often treated as binary: someone is either service-oriented or they're not. The intrinsic-performed distinction adds the dimension that matters for sustainability. In a role where service performance must be maintained for years, the source of the motivation determines the trajectory.
Hogan, J., Hogan, R. & Busch, C. M. (1984). How to measure service orientation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69(1), 167-173.
Personal Working Style Assessment
Theoretical foundations across nine domains: Self-Determination Theory, feedback orientation, engagement trajectory, emotional labour, psychological contract theory, and workplace wellbeing.
Self-Determination Theory (Domains 1 & 4)
Self-Determination Theory was developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the mid-1970s onward. It is one of the most extensively tested motivational frameworks in psychology, with thousands of published studies across cultures, industries, and age groups.
SDT identifies three basic psychological needs. Autonomy: the need to experience behaviour as volitional and self-endorsed, not independence from others but the sense that one's actions are self-determined rather than externally controlled. Competence: the need to feel effective in one's interactions with the environment, the experience of mastery and efficacy. Relatedness: the need to feel connected to others and to experience belonging and significance within one's social context.
When these needs are satisfied, people exhibit more intrinsic motivation, more effective self-regulation, and greater psychological wellbeing. When they are frustrated, motivation shifts towards external contingencies and engagement declines (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Gagné and Deci (2005) applied the framework specifically to work motivation, demonstrating that autonomous motivation predicted better performance, greater persistence, and higher wellbeing than controlled motivation.
SDT also distinguishes between types of extrinsic motivation along a continuum of internalisation: external regulation (driven by rewards or punishment), introjected regulation (driven by internal pressure such as guilt or ego), identified regulation (driven by personal endorsement of the activity's value), and integrated regulation (fully assimilated into the self). The position on this continuum predicts engagement, persistence, and wellbeing.
How we use it
Domains 1 and 4 operationalise SDT at a more granular level than the theory alone specifies. The assessment maps specific recognition preferences (public versus private, peer versus authority), mastery orientation versus variety seeking, autonomy appetite versus structure need, and social connection importance. Domain 4 extends this into management territory: instruction detail preference, check-in frequency, explanation need, and communication style. Together they produce a directly actionable guide for how to manage each individual.
Why this model
SDT has stronger empirical support than any competing motivational framework. It makes specific, testable predictions about what happens when needs are met or frustrated. It applies across cultures and industries. And it translates directly into management behaviour: a manager who knows which needs matter most for a given individual can adjust accordingly.
Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum Press.
Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
Gagné, M. & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331-362.
Feedback orientation (Domain 2)
Linderbaum and Levy (2010) developed and validated the Feedback Orientation Scale, modelling receptivity to feedback as a multidimensional construct with four components: utility (perceived usefulness of feedback), accountability (sense of obligation to act on it), social awareness (sensitivity to others' views of oneself), and feedback self-efficacy (confidence in one's ability to respond appropriately).
How we use it
Domain 2 addresses a specific measurement problem. Self-assessment of coachability has near-zero validity. In most workplace contexts, almost everyone rates themselves as open to feedback. The variance in actual behaviour is enormous, but it doesn't show up in self-report. The assessment uses scenario-based items: realistic situations where a manager, peer, or customer delivers specific types of feedback in specific ways. The response pattern reveals the conditions under which someone is receptive versus defensive, which direct self-assessment cannot.
Why this construct
Feedback orientation as a multidimensional construct explains why someone can be genuinely open to technical correction from a colleague but shut down completely when a manager offers behavioural feedback. A unitary "coachability" score collapses these distinctions. The conditional pattern is what matters for management.
Linderbaum, B. A. & Levy, P. E. (2010). The development and validation of the Feedback Orientation Scale (FOS). Journal of Management, 36(6), 1372-1405.
Engagement trajectory and friction mapping (Domain 3)
Most engagement instruments, including the Gallup Q12 and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, measure engagement as a state variable: a snapshot of current engagement level. Macey and Schneider (2008) argued for distinguishing between state engagement (current psychological state), trait engagement (dispositional tendency towards engagement), and behavioural engagement (discretionary effort). State engagement is dynamic, responsive to workplace conditions, and subject to systematic erosion.
Hobfoll's (1989) Conservation of Resources theory proposes that stress and disengagement develop when individuals experience a net loss of valued resources. Small, recurring resource losses, such as scheduling frustrations, unclear expectations, interpersonal friction, and inadequate tools, compound over time and produce engagement decline even when no single irritant is severe enough to trigger a formal complaint.
How we use it
Domain 3 adds a trajectory dimension to engagement measurement: whether someone is becoming more or less engaged over time, and at what rate. The friction-mapping component identifies specific, recurring irritants that are individually minor but cumulatively significant. These are typically invisible to management until the cumulative effect produces a resignation.
Why this approach
A snapshot tells you where someone is. A trajectory tells you where they're heading. A friction map tells you what's driving the change. All three are needed to intervene before disengagement becomes irreversible.
Macey, W. H. & Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), 3-30.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513-524.
Emotional labour for management support (Domain 6)
The same emotional labour framework described in the Luxury Fit section (Hochschild, 1983; Grandey, 2003; Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011) is applied in Domain 6 with a different purpose. In Luxury Fit, emotional labour capacity is measured as a dimension of person-environment suitability. In the Personal Working Style Assessment, it is measured to inform management support.
How we use it
The practical questions are different. Does this person need recovery time between demanding interactions? Would they benefit from a mix of customer-facing and non-customer-facing tasks? Are they relying on surface acting, which depletes faster, or deep acting, which is more sustainable? How close are they to their limits, and what does depletion look like for them specifically? The answers inform scheduling decisions, workload distribution, and support conversations.
Why the same model, different application
The research base is the same. The output is different. Luxury Fit asks "is this person suited to this level of emotional demand?" Personal Working Style asks "how should the manager support this person in managing the emotional demands they face?"
Wellbeing indicators (Domain 8)
Domain 8 measures workplace-level wellbeing indicators derived from the occupational health psychology literature. The specific indicators, sleep quality, energy levels, ability to psychologically detach from work, and perceived sustainability of pace, are drawn from Sonnentag and Fritz's (2007) recovery experience research and the Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).
The JD-R model proposes that burnout develops when job demands consistently exceed available resources, and that the process is gradual. Early indicators such as sleep disruption, difficulty disconnecting, and declining energy are detectable before the individual reaches clinical exhaustion. Sonnentag and Fritz identified psychological detachment from work during non-work time as a key recovery mechanism, with failure to detach predicting exhaustion, disengagement, and health complaints.
How we use it
These are workplace-level signals, not clinical measures. The assessment does not diagnose burnout, depression, or any clinical condition. It flags the trajectory of capacity depletion so that managers can offer support, adjust workloads, or have a conversation before a crisis develops. The indicators are most valuable as repeated measures, showing whether capacity is improving or deteriorating over time.
Why these indicators
Sleep, energy, detachment, and perceived sustainability are the earliest observable signals of capacity depletion. They precede the behavioural changes (withdrawal, irritability, declining performance) that managers typically notice. By the time behaviour changes, the window for low-cost intervention has usually closed.
Sonnentag, S. & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204-221.
Bakker, A. B. & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: state of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328.
Psychological contract and values alignment (Domain 7)
Rousseau (1989) introduced the concept of psychological contracts: the implicit, unwritten expectations employees hold about what their employer will provide in exchange for their contribution. These expectations are distinct from the formal employment contract. They cover intangible dimensions such as meaning, progression, autonomy, fairness, and recognition.
Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski and Bravo (2007) conducted a meta-analysis of psychological contract breach and found it to be one of the strongest predictors of attitudinal and behavioural withdrawal, including reduced job satisfaction, reduced organisational commitment, increased turnover intentions, and reduced in-role and extra-role performance.
How we use it
Domain 7 maps the individual's values profile, what they value most in their work, and identifies where the gap between what they value and what the role provides is widest. This gap is predictive. Where it sits tells you where dissatisfaction will emerge, often before the individual has consciously articulated it. Some gaps are addressable: more autonomy, a clearer progression path, more variety. Others are structural. Knowing which is which lets a manager have an honest conversation rather than losing someone to silent dissatisfaction.
Why this model
Values alignment predicts departure more reliably than most engagement measures because it identifies structural mismatch rather than current mood. Current mood fluctuates. Structural mismatch compounds.
Rousseau, D. M. (1989). Psychological and implied contracts in organizations. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2(2), 121-139.
Zhao, H., Wayne, S. J., Glibkowski, B. C. & Bravo, J. (2007). The impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes: a meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 60(3), 647-680.
What these assessments are not
These are applied workplace instruments, not clinical tools. They do not diagnose personality disorders, mental health conditions, or cognitive abilities. The wellbeing indicators in the Personal Working Style Assessment flag workplace-level signals. They are not a substitute for clinical assessment. If findings suggest concerns beyond workplace adjustments, the appropriate response is referral to a qualified professional.
These instruments are designed for post-hire use: understanding and developing existing employees. They are not validated for pre-hire screening and should not be used as selection tools. The item design, scoring logic, and report language all assume a developmental context.
The assessments do not use proprietary, unvalidated, or pseudoscientific frameworks. There are no personality types, colour codes, or categorical labels. Every construct measured is grounded in published, peer-reviewed research as cited on this page.