Workforce Interactive provides its customers with services based on Axiology – the formal science of value. Dr. Robert Hartman, recognized as the "father of axiology", established the relationship between human values and judgment. His assessment instrument is widely known to be one of the most mathematical, scientific, and logically derived tools ever created.

Dr. Hartman was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the significance of his work relating to self-understanding, and the favorable ways it could help our society. His value models make it possible to measure how we value the world and ourselves like a thermostat measures temperatures.

The Evolution of a Social Science
The Advancement From Inductive to Deductive Assessments

Nearly a century ago, inductive reasoning methodologies were introduced, and for decades they have been used by behavioral assessment providers. Inductive reasoning is one where lots of specific things are noted and then general observations are concluded. One of the problems with inductively based instruments is that they can be manipulated when their questions relate directly to the categories they are measuring. For example, consider the question "Do you consider yourself someone who follows the rules"? As you can imagine, this type of examination is subject to gamesmanship. Thus, psychologists have been left with inductively produced understandings that leave them with knowledge about personalities and behavior that cannot be proven or modeled with mathematics.

As in other fields of study, the social science realm is evolving, and its evolution will accrue significant advantages to employers tasked with the responsibility of assessing talent. This natural progression amid the social sciences is a result of what is known as formal axiology, which is the first and only deductive behavioral science. It offers many opportunities previously not available to organizations reliant on assessment instruments based on the inductive reasoning methods developed in the early part of last century.

Workforce Interactive utilizes this advancement in social science known as formal axiology, commonly referred to as value science. Its deductive reasoning incorporates testing of hypotheses with specific data to confirm or disprove original theories. The outcomes of deductive methodologies are laws and principles that can be modeled with symbolic languages like math, calculus, and algebra. E=MC² is the perfect example of a deduced law. Once Einstein published and explained it, scientists immediately set out to prove and disprove it. Deductively derived laws are universally applicable in thousands of different ways and to thousands of different situations.

Workforce Interactive's implementation of formal axiology does not require examinees to engage in self-analysis, therefore test trauma and manipulation of answers is substantially eliminated. As a result, our deductive assessment instrument generates results that are far more precise and objective than inductive behavioral tests.

Finally, if Galileo had not deductively defined the elements that pertain to an object moving, we would not have had the beginning steps of natural science. Scientists would be just like philosophers, social psychologists, and fortune readers. But it was what Galileo did and those who followed his deductive methodologies that enabled us to build cars, lasers, rocket ships, TVs, and computers.

In essence, emotional intelligence is the pattern of how people's biases in their thinking lead them to decide one thing or one choice is better than another – e.g. where they place value. Emotional intelligence also defines their clarity in differentiating within those biases to exercise clear and sound judgment. Good emotional intelligence suggests thinking with clarity and composure under stressful and chaotic situations; and that is what routinely separates top performers from weak ones in the workplace.

Personality, on the other hand, refers to the individual's unique emotion, thought, and behavior patterns that are observed by others. So if personality deals with the observed actions of someone, does a good personality suggest favorable tendencies as in the case of emotional intelligence? The answer is not necessarily. Because people with varying personality styles can successfully perform the same job or people with similar personalities can produce different results in the same job.

How can this be? Simply put, thinking biases, not personalities, drive behavior. Research suggests that individuals think first, and then feel emotions and take action to achieve the desired results. This is why so many managers are stunned when they find out that the personality they liked so much in the interview didn't represent the kind of employee they would be after being hired.

Because Workforce Interactive's assessment technology is based on formal axiology, or value science, insight regarding the emotional intelligence of examinees can be provided to employers. Importance is placed on thinking, not behaving, while recognizing that the same behavior may spring from different decision-making value systems in different people.

This unique level of understanding supplies our customers with insight as no personality profile assessment can.

Unprecedented Accuracy
State-Of-The-Art Assessment Technology

Workforce Interactive utilizes assessment technology based on formal axiology, the first and only behavioral science based on deductive reasoning methodologies. Deductive reasoning flows from the general to the specific. Researchers begin with a theory about how we know and understand things. They narrow that general theory into more specific hypotheses that can be tested. They then narrow down those hypotheses even further by collecting observations that fall with the arena of the hypotheses. This ultimately leads to testing of the hypotheses with specific data to confirm or disprove the original theories. The outcomes of deductive methodologies are laws and principles that are precisely proven in mathematical models.

Axiology is the science of how humans value and make value judgments. To value is to think, to assign meaning and determine the richness of properties. The development of the formal science of axiology makes possible the objective measurement of value - how humans think - as accurately as a thermometer measures the temperature.

Unlike all other assessment instruments, which rely on inductive reasoning, this structure allows us to understand how a person thinks and perceives -- not what they think, but how they think. In other words, value science tells us what we pay attention to, what is important to us, and how our value or thought biases influence our decisions and actions. Axiology explains and measures the thinking that forms the foundation for, and leads to, behavior. What is even more important, the knowledge axiology provides is objective, and accurate regardless of race, religion, gender, or socioeconomic condition. This is in direct contrast to traditional, inductive instruments that generate subjective results because examinees are generally aware of the criteria being measured.

This ability of formal axiology to quantifiably measure critical thought processes – thought processes heretofore believed to be intangible, is what enables our assessment technology to provide the precision that inductively based instruments do not provide.