There are three types of information in the
personality portraits we produce: 1) Scores on personality scales, 2) a description of
the person based on the items the raters most strongly endorsed, and 3) anecdotes and
quotes.
After collecting answers from multiple experts on a particular person, we analyze their
ratings item by item, looking for those descriptions that are endorsed most highly (or
rejected most strongly) and where there is agreement across the experts. We then create
paragraphs based on these themes and items. The result is an objective, highly detailed
description of the person's personality - a personality portrait.
Unlike the interpretations in a standard psychological report, these are not based on the
psychologist's personal interpretations. And unlike personality descriptions generated
by test interpretation software, they are specific to the person being rated, not some
group of people who obtain similar scores. In a very real sense, this is akin to the
beginning of photography, where we can capture a person's personality apart from the
impressions and interpretations of the artist.