Personal Orientation Dimensions

Abstract

The Personal Orientation Dimensions (POD) is a comprehensive psychological inventory developed by Everett L. Shostrom in 1977. It serves as a significant refinement and extension of the earlier Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), designed to measure various dimensions of the actualizing individual, a core concept in humanistic psychology. The POD is comprised of 260 items distributed across 13 distinct scales, with 20 items contributing to each scale. Utilizing a forced-choice format, the inventory assesses an individual’s orientation toward self-actualization and personal growth, offering a detailed profile of psychological health and maturity.

The development of the POD involved extensive item analyses and construct validation studies derived from the POI framework, ensuring high relevance to the theoretical model of the actualizing personality. The resulting 13 scales cover crucial aspects such as temporal orientation, emotional experience, interpersonal trust, and creative engagement with life.

Keywords

Personal Orientation Dimensions, POD, Self-actualization, Personal Orientation Inventory, POI, Humanistic Psychology, Personality Assessment, Forced-choice, E. L. Shostrom, Psychological Measurement.

Authors

Everett L. Shostrom

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Personal Orientation Dimensions (POD) scale is to provide a detailed, multidimensional assessment of an individual’s level of self-actualization. It aims to identify and quantify 13 specific psychological orientations and characteristics associated with the fully functioning, actualizing individual, as conceptualized in humanistic theory.

By extending the scope of the original POI, the POD offers a more granular analysis of psychological health, allowing practitioners and researchers to identify specific strengths (e.g., Potentiation, Creative Living) and areas of potential psychological vulnerability (e.g., Weakness, Manipulation Awareness).

Construct

The POD measures the psychological construct of the actualizing individual, rooted in the theoretical framework established by Abraham Maslow and further developed by E. L. Shostrom. This construct describes a person who lives fully in the present, demonstrates psychological synergy, accepts both strength and weakness, and possesses a basic trust in themselves and humanity.

The inventory is structured around 13 dimensions, each representing a critical facet of the actualizing process. These dimensions explore how an individual manages internal conflicts (Synergistic Integration), relates to time (Time Orientation), experiences emotions (Anger, Love), and approaches life tasks (Mission, Creative Living). The scale aims to capture the holistic nature of personal growth and psychological integration.

Validity

Validity studies conducted during the development and refinement of the POD provided evidence across several fronts, confirming its utility in measuring actualizing tendencies.

• Predictive Validity: The POD demonstrated strong predictive validity when administered to groups of actualizing individuals versus non-actualizing individuals. Significant differences were observed across all 13 scales, indicating that the instrument successfully discriminates between these two groups.
• Concurrent Validity: Concurrent validity was established through correlations with other major personality inventories. The POD showed meaningful relationships when correlated with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ). Furthermore, data analysis documented intercorrelations between the POD and the original POI, as well as the Myer Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), reinforcing its connection to established measures of personality and psychological type.

Reliability

The reliability of the Personal Orientation Dimensions was assessed using the test-retest method over two distinct intervals, demonstrating generally acceptable stability coefficients for a personality measure.

• Short-Term Reliability (One Week): Test-retest reliability coefficients measured over a one-week period ranged from a low of 0.53 (for the Weakness scale) to a high of 0.79 (for the Potentiation scale).
• Long-Term Reliability (Three Months): Over a three-month period, the reliability coefficients maintained moderate stability, ranging from 0.55 (for the Strength scale) to 0.72 (for the Weakness scale). These results indicate that, while some scales show greater stability than others, the POD provides a reasonably consistent measure of the constructs over time.

Factor Analysis

Both first-order and second-order factor analyses were performed during the scale construction to refine the structure and ensure conceptual clarity, particularly in the transition from the POI to the POD. This process led to the renaming and refinement of several existing scales and the introduction of new dimensions.

The refinement process resulted in the following scale transformations from the POI to the POD:

• Time Competence (POI) became Time Orientation (POD).
• Self-Regard (POI) became Strength (POD).
• Self-Acceptance (POI) became Weakness (POD).
• Existentiality (POI) became Potentiation (POD).
• Nature of Man-Constructive (POI) became Trust in Humanity (POD).
• Synergy (POI) became Synergistic Integration (POD).
• Acceptance of Aggression (POI) became Anger (POD).

In addition to these refined scales, three entirely new scales were introduced to the POD to capture further dimensions of the actualizing individual: Creative Living, Mission, and Manipulation Awareness.

Definition of Scales

The 13 scales of the POD are defined as follows:

• Time Orientation: Reflects an individual’s ability to live primarily in the present, avoiding excessive focus on past blame or future reliance.
• Core Centeredness: Measures the extent to which an individual trusts and believes in their own internal feelings and intuition.
• Strength: Relates to feelings of power, security, personal worth, adequacy, and competence.
• Weakness: Relates to the acceptance of one’s humanness, vulnerability, capacity for hurt, or helplessness.
• Anger: Measures the recognition and experience of feelings and expressions of anger.
• Love: Measures the capacity for and experience of warmth, tenderness, or affection.
• Synergistic Integration: Demonstrates the ability to perceive that opposites or polarities (e.g., work and play) are not necessarily conflicting but can be integrated.
• Potentiation: Reflects a holistic view of life, seeing experiences as a unified gestalt rather than fragmented parts.
• Being: Refers to the spontaneous and authentic expression of feelings or thoughts.
• Trust in Humanity: Measures the view that human nature is fundamentally good or constructive.
• Creative Living: Relates to personal effectiveness, innovation, and resourcefulness in daily life.
• Mission: Measures commitment to a significant life task or calling.
• Manipulation Awareness: Reflects the recognition of manipulative or controlling actions, both in oneself and others.

Instrument

Test Type: Personality Inventory / Psychometric Assessment

Format: The POD consists of 260 items utilizing a forced-choice format. Each item is presented twice, representing opposing ends of a continuum, requiring the respondent to choose the statement that best describes them. Machine scoring is available for efficient data processing.

Language Available: English (Original publication language)

Population Group: General population, primarily utilized in research and counseling settings to assess psychological maturity.

Age Group: Adults (College-aged and older)

Population Details: The initial standardization and development sample consisted of 402 college freshmen.

Test Methodology: Self-report inventory based on the theoretical model of the actualizing individual.

Keywords

Potentiation, Synergistic Integration, Core Centeredness, Time Orientation, Predictive Validity, Concurrent Validity, Clinical Analysis Questionnaire, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Shostrom.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not provided in source content.

Correspondence Address: Educational and Industrial Testing Service (San Diego, CA, USA)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1977

Permissions & Fee: The scale manual was published by Educational and Industrial Testing Service. Permissions and fees for use are typically handled by the publisher or copyright holder.

Reference’s

Shostrom, E. L. (1977). Manual for the Personal Orientation Dimensions. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Service.

Knapp, R. R., and Knapp, L. (1978). Conceptual and statistical refinement and extension of the measurement of actualizing: Concurrent validity of the Personal Orientation Dimensions (POD). Educational and Psychological Measurement 38:523–26.

Lerner, D. L. (1977). Self-actualizing profiles of scientists and actors as described by the Personal Orientation Dimensions. PhD dissertation, United States International University.

Maslow, A. H. (1971). The further reaches of human nature. New York: Viking.

Rofsky, M., et al. (1977). Assessing the level of actualizing of psychiatric in-patients: Validity of the Personal Orientation Dimensions. Educational and Psychological Measurement 37:1075–79.

Shostrom, E. L., et al. (1976). Validation of the Personal Orientation Dimensions: An inventory for the dimensions of actualizing. Educational and Psychological Measurement 36:391–494.

Items of the Personal Orientation Dimensions

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. a. I feel that I have a right to expect others to do what I want of them.
b. I do not feel that I have a right to expect others to do what I want of them.

2. a. I fear failure.
b. I don’t fear failure.

3. a. I follow diligently the motto, “Don’t waste your time.”
b. I do not feel bound by the motto, “Don’t waste your time.”

4. a. I feel that people are more basically good than bad.
b. I feel that people are more basically bad than good.

5. a. I feel dedicated to my work.
b. I do not feel dedicated to my work.