Caliper Re-Testing Guidelines

Does Personality Change?

The Caliper Profile measures an individual’s personality traits and cognitive ability, which tend to be relatively consistent over time. It does not measure a temporary emotional or cognitive state, which will fluctuate more readily in an individual. Some personality changes can occur over longer time spans. These changes tend to occur when individuals learn to adapt behavior in particular environments despite their “hardwiring.” For example, someone with low Thoroughness can learn to use job aids to help them manage important details. Over time, these changes in behavior will eventually impact patterns of how one responds on the Caliper Profile. It is important to note that this is a slow change process, with meaningful differences occurring over the course of years, and often only after significant and prolonged efforts to develop professionally.  

Re-administering the Caliper Profile

Caliper advises re-administering the Caliper Profile only if there is reason to believe that scores from the original administration no longer accurately represent the behavioral tendencies of the individual. Further, we strongly recommend that re-administration occur no sooner than 5 years from the most recent administration. 

Our recommendation is based on a number of factors. First, meaningful differences in personality may occur only after a course of years and after consistent, prolonged development. Second, there is strong evidence to suggest that re-taking assessments like the Caliper Profile too close in time to the initial administration can influence how one responds. That is, there is likely to be an impact on scores based on having recently “practiced” taking the assessment.  

This effect, of course, is compounded if the individual receives feedback on his or her own results or gains additional information on how to interpret the assessment results. Regardless of whether the feedback or learning is accurate or correct, this phenomenon can have an impact on how someone responds to the Caliper Profile, thereby affecting the scores. Therefore, when there is a large difference in results between two administrations that are close in time (e.g., less than 5 years), we recommend using the first administration.