Thomas International

In the late 1950's and the early 1960's Thomas Hendrickson of T H Hendrickson & Associates, of Minneapolis, Minnesota USA developed William Moulton Marston’s DISC theory to create the Personal Profile Analysis self report system for the workplace. The Personal Profile System as conceived by Hendrickson is a forced choice IPSATIVE instrument.This means it describes the individual in a self-referential way and is regarded as providing the information of importance and value to employers making personnel decisions.

The Personal Profile Analysis system attempts to determine whether individuals see themselves as characteristically seeking out and/or reacting to workplace situations that perceive as friendly or challenging and to reveal if the response pattern is one of activity or passivity.

The Personal Profile is self-administered forced choice adjective checklist consisting of 24 tetrads of descriptive words from each of which applicants are asked to select which they believe describes them most (M) and which least (L).

The words chosen in the first experiments were based on Marston's definitive work. As far as possible the words selected had 'face validity' with Marston's model and each tetrad related to one of the four dimensions: Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance.

Thomas have also developed the PPA+ format which is suitable for people with a reading age of 11+ and for candidates who are fluent in English but for whom English is not their first language.

The Thomas PPA has been subject to rigorous scientific testing to determine its reliability and validity as a psychological assessment. The PPA is registered with the British Psychological Society (BPS) after it was audited against the technical criteria established by the European Standing Committee on Tests and Testing, part of the European Federation of Psychologists' Associations.

Visit the Thomas International website for more information.