Methodology
How InnerPersona is built.
We didn't invent the science. We translated it. Every dimension in your report traces back to an instrument published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal — and every section in your report is the synthesis of multiple instruments read against each other. This page is the underlying reference list.
Personality
The five core trait dimensions that have been replicated across forty years of personality research, plus the honesty-humility dimension that the HEXACO model added when researchers found the Big Five missed something important about interpersonal trust.
IPIP-50 · 50 items
Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26–42.
HEXACO Honesty-Humility · 4 items
Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150–166.
Shadow patterns
The competitive, self-protective parts of personality — the strategic, manipulative, and emotionally cool patterns that show up in normal-range people, not just in clinical settings. We use Paulhus and colleagues' dark-triad framework, which is the most-cited treatment of these traits in non-clinical populations.
SD3 (Short Dark Triad) · 27 items
Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment, 21(1), 28–41.
Attachment style
How you actually behave in close relationships, not how you describe yourself in a dating profile. The Experiences in Close Relationships scale was developed from Bowlby and Ainsworth's attachment theory and is the standard adult-attachment measure used in research today.
ECR-R Short · 12 items
Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR)–Short Form. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187–204.
RSQ-Brief · 10 items
Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L. M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2), 226–244.
Emotion regulation
How quickly you recover from a hit, and what you do with the heat in the meantime. Emotion regulation is one of the strongest predictors of long-term wellbeing in personality research. We pair it with self-compassion because the two interact strongly — people who treat themselves harshly tend to regulate emotion worse.
DERS-SF · 16 items
Bjureberg, J., Ljótsson, B., Tull, M. T., et al. (2016). Development and validation of a brief version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale: The DERS-16. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 38(2), 284–296.
SCS-SF · 12 items
Raes, F., Pommier, E., Neff, K. D., & Van Gucht, D. (2011). Construction and factorial validation of a short form of the Self-Compassion Scale. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 18(3), 250–255.
Mood, anxiety & life satisfaction
Brief screening items that clinicians use to flag whether a conversation about mood, anxiety, or general wellbeing is worth having. These are the same items used in primary-care mental-health screening across most of the world. We use them for self-reflection, not diagnosis.
PHQ-9 · 9 items
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. W. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606–613.
GAD-7 · 7 items
Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B. W., & Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: The GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092–1097.
SWLS · 5 items
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75.
Values
What actually drives your choices when no one is watching. Schwartz's values theory has been replicated across more than eighty cultures and is the most widely used model of personal values in psychology.
PVQ-21 · 21 items
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65.
Career interests
The kinds of work that energize you versus the ones that quietly drain you. Holland's six-category model has been the foundation of career counselling for forty years and remains the most empirically supported framework for matching people to work environments.
RIASEC · 30 items
Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.
Life history & adversity
The events still shaping your nervous system today. The Adverse Childhood Experiences study is one of the most-cited public-health papers in modern psychology, and the trauma checklist for DSM-5 is the standard self-report measure for trauma symptoms used in research and clinical practice.
ACE · 10 items
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., et al. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.
PCL-5 · 20 items
Weathers, F. W., Litz, B. T., Keane, T. M., Palmieri, P. A., Marx, B. P., & Schnurr, P. P. (2013). The PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5).
Social processing
How your brain handles social input — whether your reading of social situations is closer to the population average or whether it runs differently. We use a brief version of an adult autism-traits screen, framed for self-reflection rather than diagnosis.
RAADS-14 · 14 items
Eriksson, J. M., Andersen, L. M., & Bejerot, S. (2013). RAADS-14 Screen: Validity of a screening tool for autism spectrum disorder in an adult psychiatric population. Molecular Autism, 4(1), 49.
Emotional intelligence
How accurately you read what is actually happening between people, in yourself and others. We draw on Salovey and Mayer's ability-model framework, the foundational treatment of emotional intelligence in the published literature.
Framework: Salovey & Mayer (1990); Mayer & Salovey (1997)
Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185–211. — Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications.
Character strengths
What you are naturally good at, by trait architecture. Peterson and Seligman's positive-psychology classification is the standard framework for character strengths in research.
Framework: Peterson & Seligman (2004)
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
Focus & attention
Whether your attention runs the way most people's does, or whether it runs differently. Framed for self-reflection rather than diagnosis, with cross-references to established adult attention-screening research.
Framework: Kessler et al. (2005)
Kessler, R. C., Adler, L., Ames, M., et al. (2005). The World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale: A short screening scale for use in the general population. Psychological Medicine, 35(2), 245–256.
Conflict, motivation, communication, cognitive style, health & habits
The remaining four chapters use custom inventories developed by InnerPersona's research team, drawing on established conflict-style, self-determination, communication-skills, cognitive-style, and lifestyle-screening research. These items are scored against established norms and synthesized with the validated instruments above.
Frameworks drawn on
Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes (1974); Deci & Ryan self-determination theory (1985); Riding & Cheema cognitive style (1991); plus established lifestyle and substance-screening items.
What this is not
Where the science stops.
- This is not a clinical assessment. The mental-health chapters use the same screening items a clinician might use to flag a conversation worth having — but flagging is not diagnosing. If your screening section suggests something worth taking to a professional, your report will say so directly.
- This is not therapy. Reading a personality portrait, even a deeply specific one, is not the same as working through something with a trained clinician. We are additive to therapy, not a substitute for it.
- Trait scores are not destinies. Personality is more stable than mood, less stable than rock. Most of the dimensions we measure can move with deliberate work over years. The portrait is a starting point.
- Self-report has limits. Every instrument in this assessment depends on you reading the items honestly. The synthesis catches some inconsistency, but it cannot correct for self-deception. Read your report with that in mind.
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