Description:

Sosie is Pearson's new global personality instrument measuring traits & values in one questionnaire.

Find out more...

If you want to find out more about the questionnaire and what it measures, please email wyn.davies@pearson.com or call 020 7010 2866.

What does Sosie measure?

Sosie is much richer than just a simple personality measure as it identifies both an individual's traits and their interpersonal and personal values, which are important in interactions with others and drive personal motivators.

What are values? 

Values are deeply held concepts that drive an individual's decisions, preferences, beliefs and interests. Two people with the same personality traits may act very differently according to their value system. 

An increasing number of organisations now require there to be a level of fit between the cultural or Brand values and those of the individual and a clash between personal and organisational values can often lead to disillusionment in a role or with an organisation.,

Current research indicates that the mindset of an individual (which is linked to their personality and values) is more important, in many instances, than the skills a person brings to a role.  In the rapidly changing workplace many employers are not clear what skills their employees will need in ten years time but they know exactly what sort of mindset they want their staff to have.

Download the Business Case for measuring values >

When could Sosie be used? 

Sosie can be used for recruitment, career guidance, personal and leadership development and coaching 

Recruitment 

• Sosie helps recruiters formulate hypotheses about behaviours and values which can be explored further at the interview stage of recruitment.
• Sosie helps professionals in charge of recruitment to predict behaviours and the adaptation to an organisational environment, company, team or to a job.
• Sosie helps to indicate the leadership style and how the candidate will play a role within a team.
• Because of the forced choice nature of the items in Sosie, it is difficult for candidates to fake responses 

Career Guidance 

• Sosie helps guidance professionals to understand the resources of a person in terms of his/her areas of strength and weakness, and to define the professional environment within which the person will feel most effective and comfortable.
• By investigating the values, Sosie helps HR professionals when working on motivation and aspirations of the person, and helps identify the needs of the person in terms of their preferred professional working environment.
• Sosie captures not only the stable (personality related) dynamic of the person but also the current (values driven) dynamic. This helps form discussions about how important values are and where they can be modified. 

Development 

• Sosie helps development professionals and the people they are working with to be more aware of their strengths and weaknesses in terms of self-organisation, adaptability, emotional adjustment, sociability, communication, teamwork and management.
• By investigating the values, SOSIE helps professionals to understand how the environment impacts the present way of working of the person and their well-being at work.
• Sosie can be used with a 360 instrument to look at how people view themselves (via self-reporting) versus how others view them.

Development of the Questionnaire

Sosie was developed by ECPA, a division of Pearson in France, where it is already a well-respected and widely used instrument.  Sosie is a French word translating as "a perfect resemblance to another".  Sosie is used by organisations for selection (assessment) and development interventions, career counselling and coaching.

The Sosie personality questionnaire was developed from three existing questionnaires developed by Leonard V.Gordon, an eminent American psychologist. The tests are: the Gordon Personality Professional Inventory (GPPI), the Survey of Interpersonal Values (SIV) and Survey or Personal Values (SPV).

Sosie was developed in 1991 and measures twenty dimensions which fall under three areas.

The three areas of measurement are:

• Personality Traits
• Interpersonal Values
• Personal Values

The questionnaire is ipsative in nature and is administered online.  It contains 120 questions and takes approx 25 minutes to complete but it is untimed.

Reports

A range of online reports will be available and include:

• Profile report for experienced users.
• Competency report linked to the TalentLens' competency framework that has been thoroughly researched to include a number of key competency areas.  This will contain a number of questions which can be used to aid the interview stage in an assessment process or development discussions
• Bespoke reports mapped to specific competencies required for a role (and not included in the competency report).

Training

More information on Sosie training >

In order to use and interpret the Sosie, the following range of training options is available (as public and in-house workshops):

• Conversion workshop for practitioners already experienced in trait personality instruments.
• Qualification workshop for those unfamiliar with trait personality instruments.
• We are hoping to be able to offer the Test User: Occupational Personality (formerly Level B) training in the Sosie in the near future.

To enquire about training dates or for any further information please call Wyn Davies, Marketing Manager on 020 7010 2866 or email wyn.davies@pearson.com.