One of the newest features of the Hire Success Personality Profile reports is the Trait "Parity" Index Value (or "Parity"). This index differs from the Temperament's Relative Strength Index ("RSI") that has always been shown on reports and reflected graphically in the bar chart.
Where the RSI shows the relationship between the strength of each of the temperaments in a holistic manner (that is, they must all add up to 100% or the "whole" person), the Parity Index shows how the applicant responded to all of the adjectives as related to each temperament independently of all others. Therefore, the Parity Index is on a scale of 0-100.
A score of 0%, although unlikely, would theoretically show that the person responded to all of the adjectives on the test form with a value of "5,” meaning that not a single adjective associated with that temperament described him or her. Conversely, a score of 100% would indicate that the applicant responded with a value of "1" on all of the adjectives related to that particular temperament.
When evaluating the temperaments relative to each other, the sum of all the RSI values must equal 100%. Think of this like the values in a typical pie chart. If there are 4 elements to the pie chart, no matter how high or low the values in each "slice" of the pie, they still always add up to 100%, or a whole pie. Using this as an illustration, let's examine the following two examples:
Person X has the following values for the 4 quadrants – in our case, the four Personality Temperaments. Let's say the values are:
A=35
B=30
C=20
D=15
In a pie chart, "A" would equal 35% of the whole pie, even though the "parity" on a scale of 0-100 was 35. Now, consider Person Y, who has the following values:
A=70
B=60
C=40
D=30
In a pie chart, "A" would still equal 35% of the whole pie, even though the "parity" index was 70, or twice as close to a perfect "A" type as Person X. This would mean that the RSI would make them appear to be equally strong as an "A" type, simply because relative to all of the values used, 70 = 35% of the total of 200, just as 35 = 35% of 100.
The Parity Index Value is a way of illustrating that even though relatively, both sets are equally distributed when compared to each other, Person Y far more closely parallels (or has "parity" with) the "A" type than Person X. In this way, we’re trying to provide more information that illustrates the "parity" or "alignment" with the characteristics of each temperament, as well as a relative picture of the strength of each type.
By providing this value, we don’t want to make the report confusing, but instead provide you with a different perspective of the strength of each of the Personality Temperament.