About pMetrics
perception science at a new level
pMetrics is a Canadian company specialized in perception science.
We have two different products currently that center on personality perception, especially:
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how people perceive you (more accurately, how they perceive your personality); and
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First Impression: What first impression(s) do you make.
We accomplish this through surveys and analyses.
We use powerful tools and concepts, drawn from mathematics, statistics, and psychology, such as fuzzy classification and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the responses and get you the results that will yield the biggest insight and benefits to you.
The survey tools and results are intended to be used by you, for you, to better yourself and iron out any misperceptions, either on your part or the people with whom you interact. These misperceptions that might be, and have been partial obstacles to you, and are slowing you down.
Give our products a try - you will love the results.
Please see illesim products below for more details
How pMetrics came about?
pMetrics grew out of our realization that there were inconsistencies between most people's perception of themselves, and how people around them perceived them. These differences were especially obvious and often big when it came to the 'dark side' of one's personality. Clearly, at least one of the two perceptions had to be wrong.
After extensive research, it became evident that the are several problems with the methods and tools we use to form our perceptions of ourselves. Please see the illesim section below for more details.
In order understand (and correct) any self-perception inconsistencies, you first have to find them.
In order to find them, pMetrics created a tool, similar to 'triangulation', for personality. This tool is what we call our illesim product.
Persona triangulation
The basic idea of pMetrics illesim products is to look at 'personality' from multiple viewpoints, different contexts of one's life: work, family, social, and others, and compare and analyze the results of these views against how people perceive themselves.
Please see illesim Product for more explanation and details. Our science and methods are chosen to give you the most accurate perception of you from your surroundings.
nosce te ipsum (Know yourself)
pMetrics Products
Product Lines
p-Metrics currently has two products to help you:
The illesim products
(which is actually two products, one as a subset of the other). The illeism products measure personality perceptions, or "how do you come across" to people you interact with (family, colleagues, social,...).
Impression-A product
Intended to measure first impressions. Ideally suited for anyone giving presentations, in sales, or other scenarios where first impressions are important.
Impression-A product will be officially launched in Aug. 2022.
If you would like to remain informed about progress of Impression-A, please sign up below.
If you would like to participate in the initial product testing of Impression A, please sign up here:
“Perception is everything.”
Anonymous
illeism Products
The p-Metrics illeism product line is about personality perception: how you are perceived by your circles of family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.
The illeism survey results are intended to help you overcome social obstacles or social anomalies that you may encounter (often people cannot explain why these obstacles/anomalies happen). One important consequence of the survey is that we quantify the gap between how you perceive yourself versus how others around you perceive you.
Please see illeism section below for more details about this
What's in the name?
illeism What is it?
Illeism is the act of referring to oneself in the 3rd person.
It has many uses (artistic, psychological...). It can be used positively in that one can distance oneself from oneself.
Studies have shown that when using illeism, one can become less reactive/defensive and hence more objective.
Privacy and Sharing
We value your privacy and want you to benefit from these surveys.
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They are not intended to be used or requested by any 3rd party in any way.
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Only you have access to the results and you decide if and how you want to share them.
p-Metrics will not share your results with any entity or individual, unless you declare in writing the people you want your information shared with.
Yes, please keep me informed about Impression-A
Yes, I would like to participate in Impression-A testing
illeism: How you are Percieved
A Simple Question
The illeism products grew in the process of trying to answer a simple question:
Do people around you see you as you see yourself? (or, as you want them to see you?)
As simple as the question is, there are few intricacies that must be clarified first.
What does 'you' mean?
The first important point is:
What is meant by 'you'? What makes 'you'?
Psychologist breaks 'you' into several parts:
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Personality (and Personality traits).
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Character (and Character traits).
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Persona: A persona is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character (Wikipedia).
The article [in here] has more explanations. For now, obviously what concerns us is your persona, as this is what people see. It includes your personality, your character, and several other parts.
How is it done?
Unlike usual personality tests, this is NOT a test you take yourself. It is a survey where people who know you respond as to how they perceive you.
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You list 10-20 acquaintances, people who know you to various degrees, who will respond to the survey. You supply us with their emails. We contact them on your behalf asking them if they would like to participate in a 20-minute anonymous online survey about you.
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We typically need 15±5 acquaintances of yours to answer the survey.
The section below contains full details on the mechanism of the survey.
“Knowing Yourself is the beginning of all wisdom". Aristotle
What would we measure?
You get to choose what parts you want to know about. The personality part is the default, all other parts are optional.
Personality traits:
At minimum, we measure traits similar in nature to 'standard' personality test traits, such as the Big Five or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), to name two. The difference of course is that now it will be others who answer the 'test' about you.
Character traits: (optional)
Character traits are different than personality traits [see here for more details], and are typically not covered in normal personality tests. Nevertheless, we feel it is important for you to know some of the important ones.
Dark-side traits: (optional)
This is your difficult personality part. Most people typically do not like to hear about this part. Carl Jung, who proposed one of the early theories about this, called it the shadow-- and advocated that it must be understood and integrated in one's personality, else it can do a lot of damage.
We understand it is not easy or pleasant to ask others about this, or to know about this side; that's why it is optional. We recommend that you opt for it. Please see The Shadow section for details.
The illeism Test
What you need to know
There are few points about our surveys that we would like to emphasize:
1. It takes time: The surveys require the input of 10-20 acquaintances of yours to act as respondents. We are highly dependant on how fast these respondents respond to the survey.
2. Not all will respond: There might be few respondents who decline.
3. Anonymous Results: The results for you will be anonymous, in that you will not know individual responses, only summative and aggregate ones.
4. It might surprise you: even if you did not opt for the extended version (i.e., including the difficult side of you), still the results will surprise you. It is a phenomena called "egocentric bias": We think people perceive us as we think of ourselves. Most of the times, this is simply not valid. Please see the section ∆ (delta) for more information on this.
Once you sign up for the illeism (S or E) surveys, the process is as follows:
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You agree to our 'agreement' form.
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You also supply us with your latest personality profile/test result (e.g., Big Five or MBTI). Please see below if you do not have one (easy to get). Optional.
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You supply us with the names and emails of 10-to-20 respondents in your circle(s): individuals whose feedback you value. Please see the box [Knowing You] for information on how well they need to know you.
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Participants do not have to know you very well. We apply mathematical weights to the responses depending on a variety of parameters.
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The participant mix is best if split across contexts or dimensions of your life: (i) family, (ii) work, (iii) friends, (iv) social, (v) general acquaintances.
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We send the participants a request, on your behalf, asking them if they would be willing to answer an anonymous survey about you. If they consent, we send them a link to an online questionnaire.
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Once all the participants respond, we carry out our analysis: statistical summaries, classification algorithm, and generate your personality perception report.
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We email you the report.
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After a few days, welcome your feedback on the report.
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If you supplied a personality result in the beginning, we also compare the survey result to the result you supplied and send you a delta report.
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We have a list of associates, counsellors, psychologists and life coaches that we can refer you for further follow up if needed.
The Process
Once you sign up for illesim test, you will find detailed instruction on every step of the process, especially post test: How to interpret and benefit from the test results.
How to choose respondants
How do you choose people to ask how they perceive you?
In general, variety is the key.
But you might be after specific dimensions (e.g., social), in which case you need to concentrate more on the review of social acquaintances. Few important points to keep in mind in choosing whom to ask:
1. Persona is Contextual:
Meaning, it is best to choose people from various dimensions of your life. A good dimensions mix might be:
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Family dimension: 3 to 8
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Close family: 2 to 5
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Extended family: 1 to 3
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Professional dimension: 8 to 10 as follows:
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Colleagues you supervise: 2 to 3
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Colleagues that supervise you: 2 to 3
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Colleagues at the peer level: 3 to 4
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People you deal with professionally, but not at work (e.g., suppliers or customers): 2 to 3
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Social dimension: 4 to 6, close or social friends, sports team members, etc.
You don't have to choose this mix exactly. Just if you omit a dimension, you will miss how people perceive you in that context.
2. Level of knowledge:
How well does somebody need to know you to get an accurate response to the survey?
The answer is that it does NOT have to be “well” or “very well”. We use a questionnaire to assess the level of knowledge, and based on that we use weighted answers. Our special algorithms then tests how sensitive are the results with respect to the weights. We also check for any outlier responses and any anomalies.
The bottom line is that the 10-20 people don't have to all know you very well or to the same degree. In fact a variety in the level of knowing you might actually give a clearer view.
3. How about people who dislike me?
Well, it depends: (i) why they dislike you, and (ii) what character do you believe they have (petty? honest?...). If you still value their opinion, or like to understand better why some dislike you, then yes. If not, it is best to skip their opinion.
The Mathematics of pMetrics
We use several advanced mathematical concepts to implement and analyze the pMetrics surveys that give our results higher degrees of accuracy and usability:
1. Mathematical Sensitivity Analysis:
First, as mentioned before, we assign weights to respondents answers, based on multiple factors. But then we run sensitivity analyses on the results against the weight, to ensure that the results are not highly sensitive to the weights assigned (mathematically: unstable). We also run 'outlier' and anomaly detection algorithms, and if found, to separate the result for further analysis.
2. Fuzzy analysis:
Lots of things in the world are not clear-cut black and white, but rather possess fuzzy (vague) boundaries. Mathematicians have created a theory that deals with vagueness, called Fuzzy Analysis. Making decisions using fuzzy logic is more involved, but also tends to be more accurate in many real life situations. We use fuzzy analysis heavily in pMetrics.
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI has proved to be very useful in certain classification (for labeled bins) and clustering (unlabeled bins) tasks. We currently apply AI classification to survey results, but soon we will also be implementing clustering models as well.
The Dark Side (Shadow)
Carl Jung proposed the theory that humans have a ‘dark’ side to their personality that is often hidden. He called it the shadow. Jung advocated that this shadow must be explored and integrated in one’s personality, else “... if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it will never get corrected”. He theorized that the shadow can do a lot of damage to one’s psyche if it is not integrated.
There are several approaches to properly integrate the dark side traits.
But first, you have to know what these are for you.
The ‘shadow’ is best known indirectly, through projection: projection on other people. In other words, how they perceive this shadow.
The ‘extended’ illeism-E addresses this. We offer you a choice of perception surveys:
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pMetrics illeism: the standard personality profile that does not address the dark side traits.
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pMetrics illeism-E: the extended test, if you wish to explore how people perceive your dark side.
The dark side is more complex and intricate than the ‘sunny’ side. To be exact, we survey only the major traits and their sub-traits, enough for you to determine if there is a need for more exploration, and in which direction you want to proceed. The extended test (illeism-E) offers an excellent starting point for you. We also have a list of associates, counsellors, psychologists and life coaches that we can refer you for further follow up if needed. Please see [this] article for more details on the dark side.
The Delta (∆)
Differences in Perception
The pMetrics illesim surveys are for YOU to better yourself, at the very least by you getting a clearer picture of how you are perceived, and if there are any obstacles in your relations, especially the invisible ones to you, you can figure out what the problem is and correct it.
You may have taken one or more of the common personality tests in the past, such as the Big Five or the MBTI. If you did, we would like to compare the results of your illeism survey with your personality test results. If not we would like to refer you to one of the many good sites where you can take Big Five or MBTI or DiSC or whatever suits you. That result can act as a reference point for you to compare how people perceive you.
So what if the results are different than what you expected?
Often, there is a difference, a delta, between how you perceive yourself (as would be reflected on your personality test) versus how others perceive you, as reflected in the illeism surveys. Understanding this ∆ can be invaluable to you.
It could be that:
1. people mis-perceive you, or
2. there are aspects of your personality that you need to understand
better.
This ∆ gap, depending on how large it is, can have several adverse consequences on your life and career, especially when dealing with others. It might be creating an invisible friction of sorts, or dissonance, in your life that you might have been trying to overcome, with or without you knowing specifically what it is.
Closing the ∆ gap
p-Metrics has several suggestions as to how you can interpret this difference and suggestions on ways to close this ∆ gap.
Closing this perception gap could propel you in life and career.
And this is exactly our ‘raison d’être’:
to help you remove obstacles and propel your life to the better.
Sign up for illesim
pMetrics illeism tests might take anywhere from 2 days up to 3 weeks for you to get the results, depending on the respondents speed. We will keep you updated of the progress.
The survey prices, per customer (with questionnaires sent to 10-20 respondents) are
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illesim (standard) US$ 34.95
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illesim-E (extended) US$ 44.95