A question which has been asked of us many times: “Which is better, Hogans or Cognadev?”. My answer below applies equally to SHL, Saville’s assessments, IBM Kenexa, PSI, YSC, or indeed any of the major providers of self-report personality, values-interests, competencies questionnaires, and cognitive ability assessments. Hogan Assessments Inc. just happen to be widely marketed and used in markets where Cognadev also operates, which is why we are constantly asked that question.

What does ‘better’ actually mean in this context?

On inquiry, the questioner usually rephrases the question as
which is the most ‘accurate’ assessment of an individual’s likely suitability/on-the-job performance?

Followed by more pragmatic considerations of:

• Cost
• Logistics/Ease of administration
• Ease of Interpretation
• Fairness
• Job-role specificity (job-role norm comparison group)
• International norms and applicability.

We could nit-pick about the pros and cons of all these, but as to the accuracy of personality assessment contributing to the prediction of job performance,it should be pointed out thatvalidity coefficients are aggregate group statistical indices which do not actually predict an individual’s job performance – rather that of the average of a sample. Nor is prediction exactly a given if we look at meta-analytic and a range of other validity/real-world evidence; as explained and suitably referenced in a 2020 Cognadev blog entitled: Using self-report personality questionnaires for high-stakes employee assessment: The end of an era? There are very good scientific reasons as to why this should be and is the case, but this is not the blog for such material.

As to the belief in the overriding utility of “intelligence” assessments, another well-referenced blog entitled: The CPP and IQ: Wisdom and Metacognitionaddressed this topic. For those with a deep interest in the contrast between the status-quo and emerging perspective on the actual utility of ‘intelligence’ assessment, a debate between the two polarised-view, acknowledged field-leaders in this area (Ian Deary and Robert Sternberg) has just been published (2021) in the journal Intelligence.

The #1 difference between Hogans and Cognadev

The fundamental difference is the model of human psychology and cognition that underpins virtually all ‘psychometric’ assessment providers (of which Hogans is referred to here), and us.

The standard psychometric model assumes the output of the human cognitive system and its associated behavioural phenomena can be partitioned into measurable ‘traits’ (Bob Hogan and Jeff Foster provided a well-conceptualised exposition in 2016, clarifying the meaning of personality traits), lists of discrete cognitive abilities, values, and motives. Essentially a component model of cognition where each ‘component’ is considered ‘measurable’ as a discrete SI physics base or derived-unit variable. Then, broad categories of components (personality, affect, cognitive ability, and motivation) are discussed and interpreted as discrete systems. So, psychometric models reflect the 19 th and early-to-mid-20 th Century thinking about ‘compartmentalised’ human psychology and processes.

The psychometric models either view ‘the person’ as a walking-talking repository of hidden “measurables” for each psychological attribute, through which the statistical ingenuity of psychometricians reveal a person’s standing on a hidden measurement device or ruler, or as in Hogan’s socio-analytic theory of traits, behaviours are the input to the statistically constructed ‘componentry’ to describe the characteristic behavioural features of a person.

In contrast, Cognadev assessments are constructed within an integral psychology psychological/neuroscience model; in essence a holonic-systems/complexity theory model that explains the causes of behaviours as the output of a tightly-coupled, integrated cognitive and affective system. In short, when we do something, it is a product of affective as well as cognitive networks, not ‘one or the other’. Our assessments reflect a more modern view of the brain as an integrated, highly interactive, complex system composed of functional and adaptive networks. Just think about neurogenesis in the hippocampus (the formation in several brain regions of new neurons from neural stem and progenitor cells). If you suffer acute or chronic stress or depression, neurogenesis is attenuated, memory systems are negatively impacted, thinking is affected (the memory deficits), and the person feels even more depressed as their memory deficits increase, which in turn affect neurogenesis – the process is what might be called the “deadly embrace’ of depression. Michael Eysenck has investigated the cognitive deficits associated with chronic Anxiety, and the neurogenesis aspects of depression and other cognitive-affective deficits are now well documented.

The #2 difference

We don’t ask someone how they imagine they function cognitively; we observe it directly via their actual performance on an enduring and information-rich task (the CPP). The contrast is the same as asking someone how cognitively able they are -vs- assessing cognitive ability via their performance on psychometric ability tests. Two studies (1998, 2020) put paid to this mad idea.

In the case of Cognadev’s assessment of affective, value-related and consciousness constructs, the Motivational Profile (MP) and the Values Orientation (VO) do not rely on the principle of self-report either. The MP capitalises on the use of archetypes and the non-transparent ordering and rating of metaphors whereas the VO takes advantage of concepts such as altitude, resonance and combination as opposed to item content, to algorithmically calculate valuing orientations.

The #3 difference

Other than in the case of conventional Psychometric constructs such as Personality and IQ, which are empirically based, Cognadev’s assessment of Cognition and Consciousness are based on holonic, self-contained and validated theoretical models which clearly indicate developmental options.

The #4 difference

In the case of Ability and Personality tests, the outcome largely involves lists of statistically derived constructs and results. The Cognadev assessments, however, provide a holistic view of human functioning that goes beyond behaviour to reveal its root causes, or the psychological dynamics involved.

The #5 difference

Instead of merely providing ‘high’ and ‘low’ (indicating ‘quantity’) scores on certain constructs as often is the case in Psychometrics, Cognadev contextualises assessment results in terms of work and development requirements (integrating both ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’). Individual and team profiles are thus matched to the competency requirements of suitable environments as indicated by the Contextualised Competency Mapping (CCM) tool.

Horses for Courses

Hogan’s assessments, along with all other psychometric assessments are fine for high- volume, low-medium autonomy job-role assessment where a person’s self-reports are ‘good enough’ for screen-out processing of high numbers of prospective applicants. They are ‘better-than-chance’ approaches that serve a valuable function for many kinds of job-roles. Sure, they may not be ‘accurate’ but what’s the alternative – tossing dice? It’s why the lightweight gamified assessments are disrupting this market – they advertise themselves as doing a similar job as most self-report questionnaires and GMA assessments – at lower cost and higher practical utility.

However, when it comes to leadership/high job-role autonomy assessment, self-report questionnaires just don’t cut it. Neither do GMA assessments. You need deep psychological assessment of how a person actually functions as ‘gestalt” (an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts) within an enduring novel task, and an assessment of their core-values and motivation beyond self-report questionnaire items. Then, you need expert evaluation and a more comprehensive consideration of what it all means in the specific context of that assessed individual and the reason for that assessment. Yes, it’s more time consuming than administering and reading a standard psychometrics narrative report and summary sten profile – but that’s the nature of deep/causal vs ‘quickie’ psychological assessment – where the cost of getting it wrong is really important.