Sketch your psychograph from evidence, with someone who knows you

Rate each capacity from recent incidents rather than self-image, have someone who knows you rate it blind, and decide line by line whose view to trust more.

Por que funciona

The psychograph is integral theory’s chart of one person’s uneven profile across lines. Self-ratings alone are weak evidence: a major review found people’s self-views relate only modestly to their actual performance, and others sometimes predict a person’s outcomes better than the person does. Vazire’s research adds that self and others know different things — the self is the better judge of inner, less observable traits, and friends the better judge of evaluative ones like intellect. Rating separately and comparing line by line uses each viewpoint where it is strongest.

Como fazer

1. List six capacities: thinking things through, knowing what you feel, understanding others, acting on your values, physical steadiness under stress, and one that matters to you (creativity, spiritual life, leadership).
2. For each, write one recent incident where it showed up well and one where it did not, then mark the line from 1 to 5 based on the incidents, not on how you see yourself.
3. Ask someone who sees you in several settings to rate the same six without seeing your ratings, and to give one example for each.
4. Compare line by line. Where you rate an inner capacity (knowing what you feel) differently, weigh your own view seriously; where they rate a visible, judged capacity (how you treat people, how clearly you think) differently, weigh theirs more.
5. Circle the line where both of you agree it is lowest, and keep the chart as a snapshot to redo in six months.

Evidência

Esbjörn-Hargens’s overview presents the psychograph as integral theory’s way of depicting an individual’s development across lines. Dunning, Heath and Suls (2004) review evidence that self-assessments of skill and character relate only tenuously to modestly to actual behaviour, and that other people’s predictions are at times more accurate. Vazire (2010), with self-ratings, friend and stranger ratings and behavioural tests in 165 people, found the self was the best judge of neuroticism-related traits and friends the best judges of intellect-related traits. (mechanistic)

The psychograph is an illustration, not a validated instrument, and Vazire’s findings concern personality traits rather than developmental lines; applying the self–other asymmetry to lines is an inference.

Fontes

• Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (2010). An Overview of Integral Theory: An All-Inclusive Framework for the Twenty-First Century. In S. Esbjörn-Hargens (Ed.), Integral Theory in Action: Applied, Theoretical, and Constructive Perspectives on the AQAL Model. SUNY Press. (First circulated as Integral Institute Resource Paper No. 1, 2009.)
• Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5(3), 69–106.
• 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.

Erro comum

Showing your own chart first and asking for agreement. Once someone has seen your ratings they mostly adjust around them, and the point of a second view is lost.