PPS
Introduction
PPS stands for Personality Profile System, not to be confused with the PPS, which stands for the Proactive Personality Scale. The PPS is the origin of the DISC version that’s the most used today, published by Wiley & Sons under the name Everything DiSC (with a lowercase “i”).
History
The PPS was developed by John Geier in the 1970s when he was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Health Sciences. He was the first to analyze the system's profiles at that time, identified 15 different shapes, and commented on them based on observations of participants.
The origins of the PPS trace back to earlier work on the Self Discription created by John Cleaver and his team in the 1960s. Since the technique was not protected by intellectual property, many versions emerged from this initial foundation.
Self Discription was itself inspired by Walter Clark’s work on AVA (Activity Vector Analysis) in the 1950s. Clark was mainly influenced by Louis Thurstone’s work on factorial analysis and his identification of five basic clusters of adjectives describing personality traits [1], rather than the work by Moulton Marston[2], which is often claimed. The latter was more popular and easier to relate to. In any case, the four dimensions of the PPS derive from that early work on AVA, which also influenced other popular techniques that used the factors evidenced from that era.
Geier formed a company called Performax, which was later acquired by the Carlson Learning Company in 1984. The company was renamed Inscape Publishing at Carlson’s death in 2000. Since 2012, Inscape has been part of the Professional Development division of Wiley & Sons. Personal Profile Solutions remained a Wiley distributor and owns the right to discprofile.com website.
The PPS was named PPS 2800 (Personal Profile System 2800 Series) after statistics made in 1994. The PPS version of DISC is still in use at some companies.
Assessment
The PPS functions the same way as all other DISC versions, with the 24 force-choice groups of adjectives, and 28 groups since the PPS 2800 version. For each participant are asked to check the adjective that corresponds the most and least to them. Then, the system produces a report based on the four dimensions D, I, S, and C. A brief definition of the dimensions with a GRI a priori correspondence is provided in the following table:
| Dimension | Description | GRI a priori |
|---|---|---|
| Dominance (D) | Competitive, action-oriented, strive for success, enjoy challenges, and push for their opinions. | High 1, low 3 |
| Influence (I) | Outgoing, influential, high-spirited, lively, optimistic, warm, and social, and enjoy interactions. | High 2, low 4 |
| Steadiness (S) | Steady, calm, dependable, peaceful, even-tempered, and enjoy collaboration, show concern for others, and are cautious of change. | High 3, low 1, high 2 |
| Conscientiousness (C) | Value structure, rules, accuracy, determined to stick with a problem until it's solved, skeptical, and self-controlled. | High 4, low 2 |
Originally, the results were shown with a graph like the one here on the right. The profile representation was later dropped in favor of reports only, or with the graphs sometimes mentioned in some reports. Wiley’s Everything DiSC version, which is an evolution of the PPS, has since replaced the profiles with a circumplex representation.
The 1996 technical report published by Inscape Publishing revealed the factors' interdependence and the overlap between the three graphs, along with other statistics such as reliability and Cronbach’s alpha.
Use
The PSS is used for personal development, coaching, team building, and management training, but not in recruitment. Although we still see it used by consulting companies, from time to time, in various regions of the world, it’s often been replaced by newer DISC versions or other systems.
The PPS is essentially used with reports, which, over the years, have been copied and embellished in many other DISC versions. The system is quick to take and simple. The results are produced immediately. The number of dimensions, four, is parsimonious. PPS early version, however, as it emerged before the Internet age, lacks a decent user interface and may still be seen on paper.
Critics
Intensity
The ipsative and forced-choice format prevents an accurate assessment of the factors' intensity, similar to comparing preferences between salty and sweet foods. Forcing a person to choose whether they prefer one over the other does not reveal how strongly they like or dislike salty or sweet foods. It only measures which one they prefer, even if the person hates or loves both of them.
The purpose of the original forced-choice technique, which involved selecting the most and the least, was to reduce social desirability biases and eliminate variability caused by participants’ response styles. However, choosing one dimension over three others means the model cannot, by design, capture the intensity of each dimension or how the four dimensions accurately relate to one another.
The model only measures the preference of one dimension over the other three without considering its intensity. It might reveal the least preferred dimension, but with the same limitation. It cannot determine how the remaining two dimensions relate to the least and most preferred.
Orthogonality
The dimensions lack orthogonality as the comparison with the adaptive indicates. The factors were created long before more advanced calculations associated with the FFM model (Five Factor Model) and the discovery of universal behavior factors in the 1990s and 2000s. The behavior factors continued to gain more understanding afterward, which partially aligns with Thurstone and Clark's early findings on the four dimensions that came into the Self Discription and then the PPS created by Geier.
Adaptation
The PPS model doesn’t consider the behaviors people feel they need to act out in order to adapt to their environment. Consequently, PPS measurement combines natural and adapted behaviors into a single metric. In the PPS model, a person’s natural self is influenced by their perceived adaptation, which actually only reflects how they see themselves at the moment they answered the survey.
How people adapt their behavior and how they are engaged are crucial information that link the individual to their environment and job demands, and these are not accounted for by PPS (and DISC in general).
Although the AVA from which the PPS originated was designed for work applications, the PPS itself does not consider how measures relate to job demand, limiting its usefulness in recruitment. There is no method to measure expectations within jobs, so there are no capabilities to analyze the potential fit and necessary adjustments between the candidate and the position, or for developing a tailored plan. Additionally, no studies can prove non-discrimination against protected classes of employees as required by the EEOC, which further restricts the use of the PPS recruitment.
Representation Model
The three graphs calculated by PPS represent the same dimensions. The idea that one graph could represent adaptation or the “shadow” personality, as some called it, didn’t stand the test of time. Only the third graph remained in use. The graph was later dropped in favor of a circumplex representation.
With its calculations and representation, the PPS only values one side of the dimensions being measured. That’s, for instance, measuring “Dominance” rather than “Agreeableness” (as the FFM assesses it). The other lower side of the continuum is eventually only taken into account when it is extreme. As the model cannot account for the four factors’ intensity, their representation in the graph gets distorted as well.
General validity
People may generally agree with the information in the reports and feedback sessions. This corresponds to the general experience that people agree with the information they provided through the survey, and corresponds with their knowledge of themselves. However, looking at the reports and comparing the narratives with the adaptive profiles, the narratives are either neutral (35%), imprecise and misleading (45%), or valid (20%), the three types of narrative being mixed together. Additionally, 60% of the propositions were repetitive[3].
Other information is available about DISC and Everything DiSC that applies to earlier and more recent versions, like PPS.