Personality Prism

[PersonalityPrism]

@PersonalityPrism Some more thoughts.

It's really interesting looking at a psychological model that runs orthogonally to the ones we usually come across. I find it refreshing to look at transactional analysis from time to time, which is another such and is a big one. How are you finding PRISM is working out in practice? Have you had chance to look and see if it predicts well the way folks with known type talk to each other?

I decided to take the test again and got a different result this time - Weaver.

I always respond differently to a simulated situation where I'm being 'watched' than I would in the actual situation in real life. In my days of work, I found role-playing exercises on courses hopeless for me because of this. In the case of the passages on your site, I tried to respond to them the second time through on their own terms rather than as contrived for a psychological test that is more about me than about the subjects.

Looking through the descriptions that go with these two types - Mirror and Weaver - I can see something of myself in both of them, certainly more so with Weaver than Mirror. I definitely feel more at home with Weaver as well, but maybe such feelings are not so relevant in this context. Maybe this ambivalence is consistent with my Enneagram type, 5W4, where I can readily flip back and forward between these two as much as blend them together. I would have to absorb a lot more information about the other PRISM Types to be sure, but it's possible I 'inhabit' a space mapped out by two or three related types rather than a single one, but with a definite centre of gravity - I think this is rather like @Wyote suggested. Unfortunately I didn't download the results of my first test so I can't compare the polygons to see if they have related appearance, but from memory they don't look wildly different so I guess there's some family resemblance between these two within the space mapped out by all your types.

It might be interesting if your results indicated how close someone is to the boundary between one type and another.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. What you're describing about immersing versus going meta when asked is exactly the kind of state shift PRISM tends to surface. Your natural reading mode might be immersive, closer to Inhabitant. When you're responding to a test in writing, you're in a different mode, closer to Mirror. PRISM read what you wrote in test context. That doesn't mean the analytical mode is the real you. It's what you put on the page when asked to write about passages.


On the retake difference: you consciously shifted approach between takes. The instrument reads what's actually in your responses, so a different approach can produce a different read. Weaver fitting better than Mirror tracks with that.


Your observation about inhabiting a space mapped out by two or three related types rather than a single one is close to something I've been working on. Multiple PRISM types as positions that depend on state rather than as a single fixed identity. Wyote has been thinking along similar lines, talking about an "alt" type rather than a secondary type for the state shift case. The center of gravity framing is useful.


Your feature suggestion about indicating proximity to type boundaries is a genuinely useful idea and something the constellation work is moving toward. Showing where someone sits relative to multiple types rather than just naming one.


On the predictive validity question: haven't done formal validation work on how different types interact with each other yet. There are some informal observations but nothing rigorous enough to share as data. That's research direction, not finished work.

 

[PersonalityPrism]

Kind of along the lines of my thinking yes.
From what the creator said, it seems to be that based on certain modes/orientations one's type will possibly shift.
Whether it's due to stressors or other things remains to be seen.
But my sense is for many but not all, there would be a "home base" of sorts.
Some people are oriented towards more shifting than others, I imagine.
Both with more numerous types, and/or frequency.
I can see myself getting Weaver and Inhabitant at times,
but I also would need to engage in all the types more thoroughly to really know where I might land.
Guardian does feel like home for me.

Home base works as a framing and feels right. Some people will have a clear primary type with state shifts to a small number of alts. Others will have more equal variation across multiple types without a clear center. The instrument should be able to surface both patterns once there's enough data from retakes to see the shape per user.


The frequency of shifting variable is interesting too. Some people might shift type once a year when life circumstances change. Others might shift week to week with mood. Looking at that pattern needs longitudinal data per user, which the constellation work is moving toward.


Guardian feeling like home for you tracks with what you wrote in the original take. The responses had Guardian patterns from the start.

 

[QuickTwist]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. The brain regions question is a good one and the honest answer is that PRISM doesn't make claims at that level. It's behavioral cognitive style assessment, not cognitive neuroscience. The instrument measures what your attention goes to in response to passages. That's observable behavior on the page. Which brain regions are doing what to produce that behavior isn't something PRISM addresses.


PRISM came from looking at how people gather, weight, and process information differently when they encounter something new. The 10 dimensions it measures are observable cognitive patterns: systems thinking, people focus, pattern awareness, and so on. The types emerged from patterns I kept seeing across enough people that they started feeling like distinct cognitive shapes. None of that is grounded in specific brain region claims.


So if your interest is the neuroscience theory of why people pay attention to different things, PRISM probably isn't going to answer that. If your interest is what your attention pattern actually looks like and how it compares to other patterns, PRISM gives you that.


No need to apologize for the tangent. The problem of not finding materials at your level is real and not unique to you.

I think there is nothing wrong with this. It is not necessary that we map every working of the mind to the brain. My .02.