Skip to main content

Measure Bundles

Measure Bundles are recommended groups of measures that each reflect different aspects of the same underlying psychological concept. The bundle approach is different from our frameworks, which usually involve algorithmic measures based on psychological models such as the Big Five or DISC. Bundles instead facilitate exploratory analyses by providing users with a menu of relevant measures that will help make sense of patterns of results.

For users who prefer a theory-based or top-down strategy, the measures contained in each bundle may be the starting point for creating your own composite measures, algorithms, or models. For users taking a more data-driven approach, the information below can help make sense of patterns in exploratory data analyses and connect your findings with the psychological literature. Note that many of the linguistic predictors below are context-sensitive, so always keep the psychological context of the linguistic data in mind when interpreting results. Scroll down or click the following links to explore measure bundles related to well-being, social orientation, adaptability, coachability, and self vs. other focus.

Well-Being​

Highlights​

  • Well-being can be measured holistically or subdivided into cognitive, emotional, and eudaimonic (i.e., meaningfulness) components; some models include positive social relationships, engagement, and achievement as additional elements of well-being.
  • The most common approach to assessing well-being in the social-behavioral sciences are single-item survey measures, though multidimensional models and language-based measurement have gained traction in recent decades.
  • Positive linguistic markers of well-being include words related to social engagement and specific positive emotions, such as words related to gratitude and love.
  • Negative correlates of well-being include verbal measures of stress, emotional volatility, depression, black-and-white thinking, self-consciousness, and rumination.

Background Research​

Well-being is typically defined as a subjective sense of wellness or a positive state of being. Though well-being is often measured using single-item scales that ask people to rate their overall happiness or satisfaction with life (Jovanović & Lazić, 2020), there are also multidimensional approaches that are well-supported by research. Researchers tend to agree that there are at least three primary facets of well-being: satisfaction with life (cognitive judgments about life satisfaction), happiness (positive emotions such as joy and pleasure), and eudaimonia (a sense of meaning and purpose in life; OECD, 2013). In finer-grained models such as PERMA (Positivity, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement; Seligman, 2018), social well-being (strong and rewarding relationships), engagement (interest in and excitement about life), and accomplishment (including both private achievements and esteem from peers) are sometimes considered additional separate components. Though all components of well-being are correlated, it is possible to have high levels of one facet and moderate or at times low degrees of the others. Granular measures of well-being are therefore useful in cases where the aim is to specifically target one or more aspects of well-being for improvement through coaching, therapy, or employee support.

The aspects of well-being that are targeted in language analysis depend on users’ research aims and preferred theoretical model. Users will also decide whether they want to focus on positive, negative, or all aspects of well-being. The norm in current academic research is that the absence of distress on its own isn’t sufficient for well-being, and accurate well-being assessment requires understanding both beneficial and harmful aspects of life (see Yiğit & Çakmak, 2024). However, there may be cases where some indicators are unclear or not present in the available text. For example, in professional or otherwise public conversations where negative emotional language tends to be suppressed (Moran et al., 2013), overall positive emotion and subtle indicators like pronouns may provide a stronger and more reliable signal.

Applications​

Choosing which aspects of well-being to target in a language analysis will depend on the intended applications. For dynamic visualizations over time, it’s possible to create a longitudinal well-being dashboard that tracks the pulse of a large organization by analyzing open-ended survey responses or communications within a company. Such dashboards might focus specifically on language cues that are most relevant to the workplace, such as words related to stress and social engagement within a team. In mental health-specific applications, such as analyzing therapy transcripts to identify markers of well-being improvements during a patient’s treatment progress, it may make sense to focus on risk factors, such as rumination or black-and-white thinking, in addition to protective language patterns like references to love and gratitude.

Main Facets of Well-Being​

Satisfaction with Life​

Being satisfied with life (i.e., the cognitive component of well-being) typically involves comparing your life against what you know of others’ lives and your own personal standards. For example, a common ladder measure of life satisfaction asks people in a single survey item whether they are living their worst (lowest rung) or best (highest rung) life at the moment (Cantril,1966). These measures are considered cognitive in that they involve conscious judgment and self-evaluation rather than emotions or intuition. Given the relatively cold, cognitive nature of the measure, it is possible to believe that you’re objectively living your best life without feeling very joyful or content moment to moment (especially during busy or transitional times, e.g., when raising young children or starting a business).

Happiness​

The emotional component of well-being involves feeling positive emotions such as joy and love. These can range from low-intensity contentment and a general positive mood to more intense delight, passionate love, or amusement. Research on happiness emphasizes the importance of not only alleviating distress but also increasing positive emotions such as joy in order to facilitate personal growth, mental health, and well-being (Frederickson, 2004). Indeed, interventions that focus on increasing positive emotions have downstream benefits for both alleviating distress and anxiety as well as improving satisfaction with life and happiness (Chakhssi et al., 2018).

Meaning​

The meaning component of life satisfaction is often referred to as eudaimonia or eudaimonic well-being, using the Greek word for a holistic form of happiness encompassing both intellectual and emotional flourishing (i.e., living a good life in accordance with reason). In psychology, people who feel that they have a high degree of eudaimonia in their day-to-day lives feel that they are not only successful or happy but that their lives have meaning–which, for many, means flourishing through finding purpose in life and living up to their full potential through work, community engagement, and close relationships. The eudaimonic component of well-being is related to the highest-order transpersonal experiences in Maslow’s hierarchy needs, in which people transcend concerns related to the self and other people to focus on a higher meaning and purpose (Compton, 2018).

Language Cues​

The linguistic measures of well-being are based on correlates of self-reports for overall well-being as well as its three facets individually (satisfaction with life, happiness, and meaning), including both the positive (e.g., positive emotion, flourishing) and negative (e.g., distress, poor mental health) ends of each spectrum. There are also both trait and state components in linguistic models of well-being. As with any predictors of well-being, it is critical to note that context matters. For example, being a forgiving person does not tend to promote happiness for people in relationships with friends and partners who fail to make amends or otherwise earn forgiveness after wrongdoing (McNulty & Fincham, 2012). Likewise, some of the linguistic predictors discussed below may perform best in neutral or healthy environments, as opposed to toxic or dysfunctional social contexts (e.g., workplaces, schools, or cultures).

Cognition​

Though cognitive language can be beneficial in some contexts, such as diary entries or private writing where the explicit goal is to process complex thoughts and emotions, it tends to reflect cognitive load in everyday life. Cognitive load refers to the current demands on your working memory (active thought processes that require conscious effort). Multi-tasking, distractions, and rumination all add to such cognitive processing. Chronically having too many tasks occupying executive functioning can be stressful and lead to inefficient mental processes, which people may experience as mental torpor or “brain fog.” Thus, cognitive processing language in everyday work tasks or communications can reflect tentative, confused, or ruminative thinking styles that undermine well-being.

Another cognitive tendency that erodes mental health and well-being is absolutist thinking, also known as black-and-white thinking (Al-Mosaiwi et al., 2018​​). All-or-nothing thinking is a common denominator of various maladaptive thought processes, including catastrophizing (viewing small stressors or setbacks as catastrophes) and fixed mindset (believing that people and relationships cannot change with effort; Dweck & Yeager, 2019). People who are vulnerable to depression or are in a depressive episode are more likely to engage in absolutist thinking, and this kind of thinking can be a barrier to recovery that therapists try to help clients learn to identify and avoid (Teasdale et al., 2001).

Emotion​

Positivity isn’t identically correlated with all aspects of well-being. Specifically, language expressing positive emotion is more strongly related to happiness than the other facets of well-being; on the other hand, negative emotion is a stronger (negative) predictor of life satisfaction–the cognitive component of well-being–than positive affect (Jaidka et al., 2020). Within negative emotions, the more common emotions such as fear and anger tend to offer better signals for well-being prediction than lower-frequency emotions such as disgust or embarrassment, though negativity overall is a good indicator of distress or dissatisfaction with life. Under the positive emotion umbrella, gratitude and other kinds of positive social engagement such as love and affection (or the absence of loneliness) are particularly important to overall well-being (Wood et al., 2014). It is important to be aware, however, that display rules governing which emotions are appropriate to express differ across contexts. Always check your sample’s usage of a language measure before using it to predict an outcome. If an emotion category only appears in a small proportion of your total sample, that may mean that it’s considered inappropriate in that setting–meaning that the people who are using it All of the above emotion measures are available in SALLEE.

Social Behavior​

Humans are social animals who, with rare exceptions, require at least one or a few deep human connections (close friends, family, or romantic partners) as well as a broader, shallower social support to thrive. It makes sense then that affiliation words relating to relationships, family, and friends tends to be associated with greater well-being in social communication, such as posts on social media (e.g., Pang et al., 2020). In professional contexts where references to friends, private lives, or leisure activities are taboo or uncommon, it’s still possible to use inward vs. outward focus as a marker of self-focus and attention to others. People who use more “we” and “you” are more likely to be happier and satisfied with life overall (Jaidka et al., 2020; Pang et al., 2020). However, keep in mind that those markers are confounded with clout, as higher status people tend to be happier and use more other-focused pronouns like “we” and “you” (Kacewicz et al., 2014).

Traits​

Vulnerability to stress and anxiety (stress prone and anxiety prone) are facets of trait negative affectivity (also known as neuroticism), a personality trait that represents increased risk for mental and physical illness (Lahey, 2009). Each facet indicates that a person tends to be more distressed by both everyday turbulence and major life stressors than the average neurotypical person. That is, someone vulnerable to stress will experience setbacks (rejection or tight deadlines) as more distressing and less manageable than a more emotionally stable person, who may barely register the same setbacks or view them as opportunities for growth. Note that the stress and anxiety-prone measures do not necessarily indicate that a person is currently, at the moment of speaking or writing, experiencing distress. Rather, these measures reflect greater risk of experiencing distress and mental health setbacks when confronted with life stressors on average over time. It is also important to remember that traits are stable but not entirely immutable. Behavioral interventions through therapy involving cognitive-behavioral techniques (such as refocusing on others when starting to lapse into a ruminative, self-focused cycle) can shift personality traits (Roberts et al., 2017). Neuroticism also decreases developmentally over the lifespan as a function of experience and physical changes (especially in the brain) over time (Chopik & Kitayama, 2018).

Well-Being Measures Collection​

FrameworkMeasure
CognitionCognitive Processes
LIWC ExtensionAbsolutist
SALLEEGoodfeel
SALLEEBadfeel
SALLEEFear
SALLEEAnger
SALLEEGratitude
SALLEELove
SALLEEAffection
Social Dynamics or DrivesAffiliation
LIWCWe
LIWCYou
Big 5Stress Prone
Big 5Anxiety Prone
References

Self vs. Other Focus​

Highlights​

  • Pronouns are face-valid markers of social attention that reflect mental health, social status, and personality.
  • Because personal pronouns are so frequently used, context is more critical than it is for other measures when interpreting these measures.
  • Self-focus is measured by first-person singular pronouns “I,” “me,” “my,” and contractions involving those words.
  • Other-focus is measured by second-person and first-person plural pronouns “you,” “your,” “we,” “our,” and contractions of those words.

Background Research​

Focusing on the self versus others is a simple attentional measure that is foundational to how people see their worlds and a lynchpin of mental health. The psychological meaning of self-focus is contextual. Though focusing on the self to a high degree (or to the exclusion of others) is riskier overall than the opposite pattern, there are times and places where each point of view is beneficial.

The psychological meanings of self vs. other-directed pronouns are highly contextual (Mehl et al., 2012). Thinking about the self can be helpful in the context of self-improvement (e.g., through therapy, journaling, or affirmations), but self-focus in social situations often indicates anxious self-consciousness or lack of interest in other people, both of which are barriers to connecting with other people in positive, productive ways (e.g., making friends or learning new information). Self-focus can also be harmful when discussing negative events. Though shirking responsibility for mistakes (“mistakes were made” vs. “I messed up”) can come across as dishonest, distancing oneself from distress is natural for neurotypical people—especially those who score high on the personality trait of emotional stability or are otherwise not prone to depression or other emotional disorders (Kross & Ayduk, 2017). Thinking of distress from a more distant, less personal perspective is often healthier than internalizing distress and ruminating about the events that triggered it.

Being focused on social aspects of a situation, on the other hand, makes people easier to collaborate and interact with for several reasons (see Abele & Wojciszke, 2014). Socially oriented people are more socially sensitive (aware and considerate of others’ points of view), which translates to kinder, friendlier behavior as well as better ability to learn from others (see the Coachability section). Some downsides of being focused on others can, at the extreme, include lack of self-awareness and at times (such as when other focus is combined with ambition and aggression) a ruthless approach to earning others’ approval.

Whether self and other-focus are harmful ultimately depends on what a person is attending to in the internal and external social environments. If self-focus is negative—for example, thinking about personal mistakes, embarrassments, or flaws—then that is a harmful point of view that people should attempt to correct through thinking more about the world around them. Self-focus that has to do with affirmations, gratitude, or necessary self-change can be quite positive (though even in those cases, self-focus should not be unmitigated; Seih & Pennebaker, 2014). Along the same lines, if other-focus has a Machiavellian or callous bent (for example, thinking of others only to determine how to manipulate them or get ahead) then it may be better to step back from society and try to gain better self-awareness. On the other hand, other-focus that serves to amplify empathy and capitalize on collaboration opportunities leads to better relationships, creativity, and productivity.

Applications​

Assessing self vs. other focus is especially relevant for determining the degree to which a job candidate fits with the workplace culture or its core values. It can also be useful in personnel selection and promotion decisions such as when deciding whether someone who is self-focused, focused on the group, or balanced between the two approaches would be the best fit for the group and the immediate challenges. For example, if an organization is dealing with internal crises, it may be especially critical to have a leader who uses more other-focused pronouns and has little self-consciousness or concern for the self in isolation from the group.

Language Measures​

Self versus other focus, as indicated by personal pronouns, is basic and universal enough to be useful across many diverse contexts—though, as always, the linguistic context, and especially its affordances and social norms, can affect how the relevant language cues should be interpreted. For example, is the person alone or with people? In a situation where self-disclosure is expected or unusual? Note that the fundamental meaning of various pronouns are essentially universal (e.g., “I” always refers to the self and involves some degree of self-focus; it is the psychological impact of attending to the self or other people that changes depending on the affordances of a situation.)

Focusing on the Self​

Especially in social interactions or when writing or talking about distressing events, self-focus (measured using “I”-words) is less beneficial than focusing on the outside social world (using “we,” “s/he,” or “you” pronouns). In interactions, self-focus indicates self-consciousness or inattention to others, which can be perceived as lack of interest or social skills. People who are socially anxious also experience more self-focused attention (Vriends et al., 2017). In writing about distressing topics, such as past trauma or upsetting events, focusing on the self tends to be more distressing than self-distancing (Kross & Ayduk, 2017). The association between self-focus and psychological vulnerabilities like rumination, self-consciousness, rumination, and distress partly accounts for self-focus being viewed as a sign of general vulnerability to distress or negative affectivity (Tackman et al., 2019). Keep in mind, however, that a relatively high rate of “I”-words are appropriate and healthy in some contexts, such as writing a diary entry about everyday life events or taking credit for your own successes in presentations (e.g., “my project” or “I designed”; see Mehl et al., 2012).

Focusing on Others​

As noted earlier, self vs. other focus is intertwined with other psychological variables, including social status or clout. People who have more power over others and their own lives tend to use “I”-words less and “we” and “you”-words more. Part of this shift is practical, with leaders focusing on the people they are responsible for; subordinates, on the other hand, have no one working under them. People also use “we” more when they perceive a high degree of self-other overlap, especially with close friends or team members they see as an extension or part of themselves either in general or in a given situation (e.g., work or at home; Aron et al., 2004).

When interpreting measures of self-versus other focus, always pay attention to the pragmatics of the situation: Based on each person’s role in the group or team, where does their attention need to be—on their own work, on others’, or an even mixture of both? Is the speaker responsible solely for themselves or their group? Pronoun use provides a sense of who and what people are attending to, which sometimes conflicts with their role in a group or can be a hindrance to job performance (e.g., in the case of a self-conscious leader).

Self vs. Other Focus Measures Collection​

FrameworkMeasure
LIWCI
LIWCWe
LIWCYou
Social DynamicsInward Focus
Social DynamicsOutward Focus
Temporal and OrientationSelf Focus
Temporal and OrientationExternal Focus
References
  • Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2014). Communal and agentic content in social cognition: A dual perspective model. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 50, pp. 195-255). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7
  • Aron, A., McLaughlin-Volpe, T., Mashek, D., Lewandowski, G., Wright, S. C., & Aron, E. N. (2004). Including others in the self. European Review of Social Psychology, 15, 101-132. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10463280440000008
  • Kross, E., & Ayduk, O. (2017). Self-distancing: Theory, research, and current directions. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 55, pp. 81-136). Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065260116300338
  • Mehl, M. R., Robbins, M. L., & Holleran, S. E. (2012). How taking a word for a word can be problematic: Context-dependent linguistic markers of extraversion and neuroticism. Journal of Methods and Measurement in the Social Sciences, 3(2), 30-50. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/v3i2.16477
  • Seih, Y. T., Chung, C. K., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). Experimental manipulations of perspective taking and perspective switching in expressive writing. Cognition & Emotion, 25(5), 926-938. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.512123
  • Tackman, A. M., Sbarra, D. A., Carey, A. L., Donnellan, M. B., Horn, A. B., Holtzman, N. S., Edwards, T. M. S., Pennebaker, J. W., & Mehl, M. R. (2019). Depression, negative emotionality, and self-referential language: A multi-lab, multi-measure, and multi-language-task research synthesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116, 817. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000187 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29504797/
  • Vriends, N., Meral, Y., Bargas-Avila, J. A., Stadler, C., & Bögels, S. M. (2017). How do I look? Self-focused attention during a video chat of women with social anxiety (disorder). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 92, 77-86. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2017.02.008 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28284146/

Adaptability​

Highlights​

  • Adaptable people grow and improve in response to changes and challenges, both external (e.g., economic changes, rejection) and internal (e.g., illness, disability).
  • Measuring adaptability is especially relevant for predicting how people (customers, leaders, employees, and others) will respond to changes and novelty.
  • Positive correlates of adaptability include trait measures of openness and state measures of curiosity; negative predictors of adaptability include cautious and avoidant language.

Background Research​

Adaptability is the ability to change in response to situational constraints, especially challenges. These pressures can be momentary, but the more critical test of adaptability occurs when people are forced to either change or stagnate in response to fundamental tectonic shifts in their personal lives or the broader culture (e.g., technology, the economy, politics). Adaptability is correlated with flexibility, resilience, perseverance, and grit; though adaptability is not identical to those terms, it can be thought of as a necessary but not sufficient condition for them (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). For a person to cope with the unexpected, ranging from trauma and adversity to new tools or information, they must be able to adapt to uncertain circumstances. Yet someone who is able to thrive under novel circumstances may not be especially resilient–that is, they may be masters of improvisation in a given moment while also having relatively low stamina for adapting to a long run of changes (Martin et al., 2012).

In psychology, adaptability is often studied with respect to coping with distressing and unexpected circumstances, such as illness, unemployment, or disasters (e.g., Zhang et al., 2021). On the lighter side, everyday adaptability is less focused on coping and has more to do with being open to change, flexible, and willing to learn new things–characteristics that are strong predictors of success and fulfillment in one’s career (Zacher, 2014). The Receptiviti adaptability measure bundle includes variables that are relevant to both types of adaptability, though we focus primarily on behavioral manifestations of adaptability that you might find in everyday life in workplace communication or social interactions.

Applications​

Measures of adaptability are especially relevant in hiring or personnel selection and customer segmentation. When assessing the audience for any new product, it is important to be able to identify early adopters and assess the adaptability of target markets. In hiring, adaptability may be most relevant to leaders of large, dynamic organizations. In such roles, adaptability–in response to changing economic forces, trends, and cultural shifts–may be even more important for success than specific skills or competencies.

Language Measures​

Risk Assessment​

People who are adaptable are not entirely incautious or risk-prone, but they tend to be less cautious and avoidant when faced with potential risks than others (Johnsen et al., 1998). That is, rather than freezing and retreating in the face of stress or adversity, adaptable people approach and cope with stressors in flexible ways, often involving positive reframing (e.g., viewing a layoff as a chance to take a vacation, learn new skills, and change one’s career path; Munroe et al., 2022). Thus, lower rates of risky language and avoidant words are both indicators of adaptability.

Exploring the Environment​

Independent of how people deal with risks, adaptability generally means adjusting and thriving in response to new information, social norms, and opportunities. For many people, adopting and adapting to new technology is a common challenge in everyday life and in the workplace. This mindset is reflected in language related to openness (especially to novelty and change) and curiosity.

People differ in both openness to new experiences and the degree to which they are curious about the world. Both characteristics are also related to happiness. When people are content or happy–or experiencing more positive than negative emotions on average–they are more likely to explore new ideas or experiences (Frederickson, 2013). The association between positivity and a “broaden and build” mindset is one reason that falling in love often leads to self-expansion–discovering new parts of the self, learning new skills or knowledge, and exploring the opportunities available (Sheets, 2014). Adaptability is a versatile and psychologically fundamental measure with relevance to a wide range of outcomes related to well-being and job performance.

Adaptability Measure Collection​

FrameworkMeasure
Big 5Cautious
LIWC ExtensionAvoidance
Needs and ValuesOpenness to Change
Needs and ValuesCuriosity
References

Coachability​

Highlights​

  • People who are highly coachable excel at paying attention to and learning from a mentor’s or coach’s advice, including criticism and praise.
  • Coachable people aren’t necessarily compliant or even subordinate, but they should be humble enough to admit they have room for improvement and be grateful for guidance.
  • They should also be ambitious, committed to working towards achievements, and confident that growth through coaching is possible.
  • Positive correlates of coachability include words related to gratitude, humility, and achievement.

Background Research​

Coachability refers broadly to the degree that someone can respond proactively and productively to others’ constructive feedback, including both praise and criticism. Being coachable entails internal and external aspects, including self-motivation (also referred to as intrinsic motivation; Fishbach & Woolley, 2022), a growth mindset (rather than believe that skills are fixed and immovable; Dweck & Yeager, 2019), commitment to their job or the position for which they are receiving coaching (Bozer et al., 2013), the emotion regulation skills to respond positively to setbacks or criticism (see also Adaptability), and the humility required to follow another person’s lead (Porter & Schumann, 2018).

Coachability involves not merely being driven to succeed but specifically being able to work with others—people who not only encourage but also give critical feedback at times—to continually improve over time (Weiss & Merrigan, 2021). Though coachability is correlated with self-improvement and greatly helped by having a growth mindset, it should be noted that people are also able to improve over time (personally or professionally) even if they cope poorly with criticism. For example, people who score high in grandiose narcissism (i.e., arrogance, superiority, and entitlement) are highly sensitive to even constructive criticism regarding their competence, yet they can nevertheless go on to great accomplishments and success through more independent avenues of self-improvement (Miller et al., 2021). Thus, assessing coachability provides guidance on how rather than whether to foster a person’s growth.

People are more coachable to the degree that they are able to control their behavior and emotions. A person cannot respond productively to setbacks if they aren’t able to dynamically regulate their thoughts and feelings in response to environmental opportunities and pressures (Duckworth & Steinberg, 2015). Self-control is a foundational building block of many aspects of well-being and mental health. In the context of coachability, self-control is especially useful for being able to follow behavioral advice that is difficult or doesn’t come naturally and down-regulating negative emotions about criticism.

Applications​

The most obvious use for a coachability measure is in sports management and athletic coaching, including helping with resource allocation and recruitment decisions. Outside of athletics, assessing a person’s coachability is also useful in determining whether and when to invest in on-the-job-training and coaching for existing employees. Coachability is also relevant when deciding whether to promote a junior employee to a role that involves expanding or changing their skillset.

Being low in coachability does not mean that a person will not improve over time, but it does mean that investing heavily in coaching and mentorship for that person should not be as much of a priority as it would be for someone who is likely to be more receptive to such training. If someone is low on coachability, they may excel best in linear promotions rather than shifting laterally (e.g., from an individual contributor to a manager position) or taking on any new role that requires mentorship.

Language Measures​

Self-control, reflected in the disciplined measure, is foundational to every aspect of coachability. A person must be able to control their thoughts and regulate their emotions to maintain positive momentum and motivation, especially in the absence of obvious external rewards or in the face of failure. Self-discipline, for these reasons, is also associated with better well-being and relationship quality (Nielsen et al., 2019).

Intrinsic motivation involves working or striving towards some goal because it feels good (i.e., is joyful or meaningful) personally rather than because of some expected external reward (e.g., money, rewards). People who are intrinsically motivated or enjoy doing something for its own sake tend to persist longer and attain greater expertise than people who are motivated primarily by extrinsic rewards, such as recognition, awards, or payment. That is, because the act of doing something is rewarding in and of itself for intrinsically motivated people, they are ironically more likely to achieve tangible mastery milestones and recognition relative to people who are extrinsically motivated (i.e., the means-ends fusion model; Woolley & Fishbach, 2012).

Responding to criticism with growth rather than anger or giving up is made easier by a few characteristics. Being open to change and humble (both measures available in the Big Five framework) as a personality trait or habitual practice can make it easier to see setbacks and criticism as opportunities for growth. Indeed, trait humility is related to both openness to other viewpoints and growth mindset (i.e., the belief that people can change and improve with work; Porter & Schumann, 2018).

Gratitude as a momentary emotion or regular practice also sets people up for adaptive responses to setbacks. Being grateful for opportunities and for the time other people have taken to provide feedback can help to positively reframe criticisms and failure as catalysts for self-improvement and growth (Armenta et al., 2017). Gratitude, as with many of the other measures listed in this document, is an important building block of well-being and mental health (Wood & Geraghty, 2010).

Coachability Measures Collection​

FrameworkMeasure
Big 5Disciplined
DrivesAchievement
Needs and ValuesOpen to Change
Big 5Humble
SALLEEGratitude
References

Socially Oriented​

Highlights​

  • Social orientation is an umbrella term that includes attention to other people, interest in others’ feelings and thoughts, and behavior that aims to preserve, promote, and protect social ties.
  • Though not sufficient on its own in most cases, some degree of social interest is often viewed as a necessary component of a functional business, team, or individual.
  • Words reflecting affiliation, extraversion, social behavior or categories, and DISC people focus all positively correlate with social orientation.

Background Research​

Social orientation refers to the degree to which people think about other people and prioritize relationships. Individual differences in the degree to which people are oriented toward people and social goals have been most famously studied in the context of the Big Two personality dimensions and the systemizing-empathizing theory of autism and gender. Both of these models frame social orientation as an enduring trait that is partly hardwired in the brain and partly related to upbringing, especially social norms related to gender. In research from both frameworks, a balanced point of view—that is, focusing to similar degrees on social and nonsocial aspects of the environment—seems to be best for getting along with people and living a good life.

The same language variables that reflect social orientation as a trait can also be used as indicators of social orientation as a momentary mental state—an approach that may make more sense than the trait perspective in cases where users have a thin slice of behavior from each writer or speaker and cannot track people across multiple contexts over time.

Applications​

Social orientation measures can be used to assess people, groups, or cultures. Some applications of the social orientation measure include characterizing how a corporate culture is viewed from the perspective of potential customers or the general public. There are cases where an organization may wish to come across as people-centric and other situations where a more objective, task-focused voice may be more appropriate (given aspects of the economy, online buzz about a company, or current events). Likewise, leaders are often defined by their (dis)interest in people and personal relationships. Whether an organization is seeking a social or impersonal leader, it will be useful to be able to quickly and unobtrusively assess that trait.

Language Measures​

Some of the relevant psychological constructs indexed by the measures in this bundle are need for affiliation, empathy, communion (or communal orientation), and interest in other people’s mental states. As noted, each of these measures can be used to capture either mental states or traits, though all are more commonly researched in the context of traits or individual differences. For example, need for affiliation is typically construed as a chronic, stable motivation (Köllner & Schultheiss, 2014). They are collectively reflected in LIWC’s affiliation and social categories, including language referring to other people, close relationships, and affection, and the DISC people focus measure.

Empathy with a given person’s feelings or thoughts varies from moment to moment (Depow et al., 2021), but the tendency to be interested in other people’s thoughts and feelings on average, across all situations, is also studied as a stable individual difference (contrasted with systemizing; Baron-Cohen, 2010; Greenberg et al., 2018) that may to some degree be hardwired in the structure of the brain (Banissy et al., 2012). Though it is most useful in contexts with affordances for empathy (e.g., responses to others’ bad news), the LIWC extension empathy measure can be used as an index of the degree to which a person is thinking in callous, socially distant (low empathy) or warm, sympathetic ways (high empathy).

Caring about building and maintaining relationships—i.e., having a communal orientation—can be measured both as a momentary mental state tied to a specific context and a trait that is stable across contexts as well. Communal orientation, especially when combined with agency (e.g., being both friendly and outgoing), is associated with being more likable (Dufner & Krause, 2023). People also provide better social support to friends and partners when they care about and put resources into maintaining those relationships, and actively supporting people in close relationships is one of the routes through which communal and agentic behavior interact to facilitate more satisfying relationships and lives (Helgeson, 1994). Behavior that is both agentic and communal (e.g., outgoing, actively supportive) manifests as extraversion (available in Receptiviti’s Big Five framework) in social contexts. Note though that although communal behavior is associated with well-being, recent longitudinal findings suggest that communal connections may be better understood as consequences rather than causes of emotional wellness (Vella-Broderick et al., 2023).

Socially Orientated Measures Collection​

FrameworkMeasure
Social Dynamics or DrivesAffiliation
LIWC or Social DynamicsSocial
DISCPeople Focus
LIWC ExtensionEmpathy
Big FiveExtraversion
References