FAQ’s Regarding SIMA®
Frequently Asked Questions About SIMA®
Q: How does SIMA® avoid gender bias?
A: SIMA® is not a "standardized" test, in that it does not compare a person against any statistical "norm" of a population. By considering the person in his/her own right, apart from any other human beings, any potential for bias is eliminated. SIMA® collects and analyzes a person's own history of meaningful achievement, in his/her own language. So whatever factors may be introduced by virtue of the person's gender become valuable, meaningful, and integral to describing the person, not biases to be overcome or avoided.
Q: How does SIMA® allow for differences of culture and ethnic heritage?
A: SIMA® has been used successfully in a wide variety of cultures, ethnic groups, and socio-economic communities. One key to SIMA®'s remarkable range of adaptability is that it collects and analyzes a person's history of meaningful achievement in his/her own language. By honoring the person's linguistic forms, SIMA® honors the person's cultural context.
Unlike almost all personality tests, psychological inventories, and psychometric instruments, SIMA® does not rely on "standardized" scores that compare a person against a statistical "norm" of a population. Norms have an insidious habit of introducing bias. But SIMA® is immune to that problem because it simply considers the person in his/her own right, in his/her own context, apart from any other human beings. Whatever factors may be introduced by virtue of the person's cultural or socio-ethnic context become valuable, meaningful, and integral to describing the person, not biases to be overcome or avoided.
Q: How do you know SIMA® is accurate?
A: A lot depends on what is meant by "accurate." How is the "accuracy" of any assessment determined? Our culture places a great deal of weight on scientific accuracy, meaning that things can be measured quantitatively, and then compared against one another to determine their "accuracy" relative to one another.
Unfortunately, human beings are not so easily quantified. Nor are there objective, quantifiable standards against which to measure human behavior. For that reason, researchers have long compared humans against humans in attempts to create "norms" for evaluating various human characteristics. Norms may have value, but even if a person is accurately described relative to some "norm," how valuable and meaningful is that? For example, suppose someone scores in the 78th percentile for some trait like “dominance.” That score may be "accurate." But is it relevant? How much does it help us understand the person? And what do we do when we find the person not looking very dominant?
SIMA®'s scientific "accuracy" has been evaluated against other forms of assessment in a number of formal studies. One of the most important was The Leadership Profile Project, carried out in 1989-1990 by Dr. John Crites (1928-2007), one of the leading vocational psychologists of the 20th century. The objective of the research was to evaluate the usefulness of SIMA® for identifying potential leaders for executive and managerial positions. The research design followed test standards established by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1985 for determining the psychometric characteristics of assessment techniques (i.e., scoring objectivity, reliability, and validity).
Dr. Crites conducted seven studies to assess the extent to which SIMA® approximated the APA standards. He concluded that SIMA® was both theoretically sound and empirically reliable and valid for use as a selection tool. He found that it met all applicable APA standards for the assessment and selection of leaders, and that an individual MAP® profile is stable over time.
In his summary remarks, Dr. Crites praised SIMA®, noting that our assessment achieved "positive results" in all studies. He saw that as a "unique and highly positive outcome for this type of project." He further stated that "the weight of the evidence for these findings is indeed impressive," concluding that "SIMA® can be used with confidence as a selection and leadership identification method."
Dr. Crites' validation studies corroborate SI's experience that SIMA®'s accuracy is consistently demonstrated by its uncanny ability to predict a person's behavior in a given set of circumstances. Throughout the nearly fifty years during which SIMA® has been used with hundreds of thousands of people in a wide range of situations, SIMA® has time and time again anticipated how a person will function when placed in a given context. Often that foreknowledge has superceded—and even disproved—expectations that were generated by other forms of assessment. That remarkable reliability offers strong (albeit unscientific) evidence of SIMA®'s "accuracy" in describing individual persons.
Q: Since people obviously change over time, doesn't that affect the accuracy of SIMA®'s results?
A: Actually, people do not fundamentally change over time. The core of who they are—their personhood—remains stable and consistent throughout life. Many things about the person may change: their jobs, their habits, their relationships, their values, their hobbies, their material circumstances, their bodies. But their essential personhood remains the same throughout. By tapping into that personhood, SIMA® is able to describe what is enduring and unchanging about an individual. For that reason, the description that comes from the SIMA® process remains accurate and useful throughout the person's life.
Q: I don't want to be labeled or pigeon-holed. How does SIMA® avoid that?
A: SIMA® avoids labeling you by not labeling you. We do not put people into categories or boxes. We do not compare you to anyone else. We simply use plain English to describe your natural, core strengths and the way you instinctively function, as if you were the only person on the planet.
Q: Telling stories as part of the process sounds very subjective. How does SIMA® avoid bias and "slanting" on the part of the person telling stories?
A: Telling stories about activities that actually occurred in your life is really the most objective way there is of getting at your core motivation. Most personality tests and psychological inventories present you with a set of hypothetical questions, each with several choices that you are forced to answer (A, B, C, etc.). Answering such questions is inherently subjective because you are asked to rate yourself. But how "objective" can you really be about yourself? How do you "know" which answer is truly accurate to you? And what prevents you from marking a particular answer, even though you know it is not accurate to who you are?
SIMA® avoids those problems by asking you about activities that you actually have done, in the real world. Not hypothetical situations, but actual events. Nor does SIMA® ask you to analyze yourself. All you have to do is tell us what happened, according to your memory of the story.
Can you "slant" the story? Yes, if you wish. But with SIMA®, there is no incentive to fabricate what happened, as there are no right/wrong or better/worse scores. Furthermore, even when people have not been totally honest, or have "embellished the truth" in telling their stories, SIMA® has an uncanny way of bringing that to light and, despite those evasions, accurately describing how the person naturally functions. Indeed, the analysis often shows that the person is predisposed to playing fast and loose with the "facts" precisely because of their natural motivation.
Q: The SIMA® process requires a person to tell personal stories. That seems awfully revealing. What does SI do with that information? How do your protect confidentiality?
A: Telling stories is indeed quite revealing. But with SIMA®, what is revealed is the best of you, not the worst. Everyone has flaws and weaknesses and areas they'd rather not talk about. SIMA® is not designed or intended to look at those kinds of factors. We want to discover, not what's wrong with you, but what's right with you—the "good truth" about your core strengths and natural motivation.
We accomplish that by letting you stay in control of what stories you tell us. The stories we are interested in are of you at your best, when you were doing activities that you enjoyed and felt a sense of accomplishment. You tell us the stories in your own words. And you are free to leave out elements that were painful or embarrassing. That will not compromise our analysis in any way.
Once you've told us your stories, we hold onto that information and do not share it with anyone else unless you permit us to do so. Internally, a trained, certified achievement activities analyst will spend quite a bit of time with your stories to find your Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP®). That MAP® will be explained to you in a feedback session led by a trained, certified SIMA® practitioner.
Sometimes a person's supervisor or other decision-maker will want to see the MAP® report, so as to use it in making a decision or determining a course of action that involves the person. Or again, a team of people who have gone through SIMA® will come together to review each other's MAPs® as part of a team-building exercise. In cases like these, the MAP® itself will be presented by the SIMA® practitioner, as a way of helping others gain the best, most accurate understanding the person's core strengths and natural motivation.
In all cases, we insist that our clients use the information we provide from a SIMA® analysis to positively benefit people's lives and careers, not hurt or damage them. SIMA® is inherently positive and affirming, and we expect our clients to use it in that way.