My Experience with 16pf (personality profiling instrument) as a certified user

The 16pf Questionnaire, by the author, Raymond Cattell, was developed to measure the Personality Dimensions that affects a person's behavior.

At the broadest level, it has 5 Global Factors, each of which defines a major area of Human Behavior. At a deeper level, each of these 5 Global factors is made up of more detailed 'scales' which define more in-depth parts of Personality. These are the 16 Primary factors.

We need to remember that the results are based on the respondent's description of their own personality & behavior. And there's nothing wright or wrong in it. Results of psychometric questionnaires like this one enable a good prediction of how people will behave in a variety of situations.

As a part of the certification process, I first dived deeper into my own 16pf report & understood my personality traits as below :

1. The First Global Factor in the domain called 'Relating to Others' refers to my high behavior 'Extraversion'. Which means I tend to invest more time & energy in interaction & relationship with other people.

Contributing Primary Factors :

• 'Warmth' - I scored very high in this -it described my behavior as Caring, soft-hearted, sympathetic, nurturing & generous behaviors.
• 'Liveliness.' I scored very high in this scale as well & it describes me as Enthusiastic, Lively, High-Energy, Fun-Loving, Care-free, Optimistic person.
• 'Social Boldness.' Here also My Score was Fairly High. It describes my behavior as high in Networking, Socializing, Bold & Forward, At Ease with Public Speaking, Comfortable with Conflict.
• Group Oriented - says I like Companionship
• Forthright - I am Transparent, Open, Straightforward & frank.

Key Takeaway for me :

The richness of 16pf comes from the interactions among different factors. As a Group Oriented & fairly Dominant person, I seek to influence and control others in a more friendly & collaborative manner. Also, as my Warmth is very high, I am attentive to others feelings & tend to be assertive.

2. The 2nd Global Factor in the domain of Influence & Collaboration refer to my style of self expression & persuasion.

Here, my score shows my behavior as Assertive & self- determined & self- directed.

Contributing Primary Factors :

• Dominance - Describes me with Fairly High Dominance - talks about my Assertive, Dynamic & Persuasive nature.
• Social Boldness is very high & it talks about my Adventurous, Daring & Resilient nature.
• Vigilance - My Vigilance is also more & describes me as Alert to others' motives.
• Openness to Change is Moderate in my behavior & describes me as showing a balance between Traditional & Change.

3. The 3rd Global Factor in the domain of 'Thinking Style' measures the extent to which I will experience the world in concrete, logical, unsentimental terms as opposed to playing attention to emotions, intuitions & imagination.

Here, I tend to show a moderation in my Cognitive style - a balance between sensitivity to emotions, imagination & ideas and Alertness to Concrete.

Contributing Primary Factors :

• Sensitivity is moderately high in me It shows a balance between awareness of sensitive emotional issues & attention to logic & facts. I tend to be more flexible in moving between Thinking & Feeling Responses.
• Abstractedness is Moderate in me - balance between practical & conceptual issues.
• Openness to Change is also Moderate in me and it talks about a balance between Traditional & Innovative ways of looking at things.

4. The 4th Global Factor is in the domain of Structure & Flexibility. It talks about the degree to which I structure & order my life and how predictable as opposed to spontaneous my behavior is. I scored moderately indicating I strike a balance between structure & flexibility.

5. The 5th Global factor is in the domain of Management of Pressure. Here also my score is moderate indicating that I tend to feel reasonably calm & relaxed when dealing with everyday setbacks, but may become more emotional or upset when faced with significant difficulties.

After analyzing my own 16pf profile, I now know that this instrument is a good indicator to understand our unique personality make-up. We can identify the distinctive personal strengths, potential and areas of development. It helps us to understand how one's personality affects the everyday behavior and work performance. The 16pf questionnaire is a powerful personality profiling instrument that can help us form a deeper understanding of our strengths & development needs throughout our adult life.