Methods · the long version
For the curious and the sceptical: every source, every threshold, every limit.
The details: sources, scoring and limits
Where each of the thirteen measures comes from, how the questions were made, how scoring works at a high level, the evidence thresholds, what the method cannot do, and every claim labelled with its source.
Where the measures come from
Each measure borrows an idea from established research
None of the 13 is new science on its own. Each takes a well-studied idea from stress, emotion or personality research and gives it a plain name in one shared vocabulary. The research below is about the idea; it is not evidence that our questions measure it well. That check comes later (see “What has been validated”).
| Measure | Closest research idea | Evidence for the idea | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bounces off (Reflect) | Self-distancing People who step back and look at a hard moment from a little distance tend to report less distress and less replaying afterwards. |
Moderate | Kross & Ayduk 2017 |
| Sinks in (Absorb) | Expressive suppression People who habitually keep feelings off their face tend to report feeling the emotion no less inside, and sometimes feel less close to others. |
Moderate | Gross & John 2003; Gross 1998 |
| Goes straight out (Transmit) | Social sharing of emotion After most emotional events, people talk about them with someone else, often soon and more than once. |
Moderate | Rimé 2009 |
| How much of the room gets in (Porosity) | Emotional contagion People tend to catch the emotions of those around them, often without noticing, through faces, voices and posture. |
Moderate | Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson 1993 |
| How much it takes to move you (Stiffness) | Intolerance of uncertainty People who find uncertainty hard to bear tend to report more worry and anxiety across many settings. |
Strong | Carleton, Norton & Asmundson 2007; McEvoy et al. 2019 |
| When it starts to get serious (Yield point) | Reactivity to daily stressors People differ in how strongly everyday problems move their mood, and those differences matter as much as how many problems they face. |
Moderate | Bolger & Schilling 1991; Almeida 2005 |
| How far you bend without breaking (Ductility) | Regulatory flexibility People who notice what a situation needs and adjust their response tend to cope somewhat better over time. |
Moderate | Bonanno & Burton 2013; Cheng, Lau & Chan 2014 |
| Whether pressure turns into action (Piezo) | Stress mindset People who see stress as something that can sharpen performance tend to report better work and mood under pressure. |
Early | Crum, Salovey & Achor 2013 |
| Whether repeats make you tougher (Work hardening) | Steeling and moderate adversity People with some past adversity tend to report better wellbeing than those with none or a great deal. |
Early | Seery, Holman & Silver 2010; Rutter 2012 |
| How repeats wear on you (Fatigue) | Daily hassles Small everyday hassles predict wellbeing as well as, and sometimes better than, major life events. |
Moderate | Kanner et al. 1981; Almeida 2005 |
| How slow, long pressure wears on you (Creep) | Allostatic load The same stress responses that help in the short term are linked to wear on health when they stay on for long periods. |
Moderate | McEwen 1998; Guidi et al. 2021 |
| How long it stays (Half-life) | Emotional inertia Some people’s moods change slowly from moment to moment, and higher inertia goes with lower wellbeing. |
Moderate | Kuppens, Allen & Sheeber 2010; Houben, Van Den Noortgate & Kuppens 2015 |
| What’s left afterwards (Residual stress) | Perseverative cognition and rumination Worry and rumination after a stressor are linked to prolonged physical stress responses and lower mood. |
Strong | Brosschot, Gerin & Thayer 2006; Ottaviani et al. 2016; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco & Lyubomirsky 2008 |
How the questions were made
Small scenes, four reactions, rewritten until no answer looks best
Everyday scenes
Every round starts from an ordinary moment: a sharp question in a shared kitchen, months of roadworks, a plan cancelled at 6 pm. Scenes keep answers about what you tend to do, not who you would like to be.
Rounds of four
Each round offers four reactions to the scene, each written for a different measure. You pick the one most like you and the one least like you. The full profile is 26 rounds; each situation quiz uses a subset of them chosen for its question.
A blind sort
Before launch, reviewers sorted the statements into measures without seeing which measure each was written for. Statements that landed in the wrong place were rewritten.
Desirability balancing
Each statement was rated for how flattering it sounds, and the four in a round were rewritten until they sit close together. An independent re-rating still found rounds that sat further apart than we want; those are being rewritten, and a rating study with more people is planned.
Plain mode
“Ask me directly and plainly” swaps the playful wording for simpler sentences with the same meaning. We record which wording you saw. For now we treat the two as equivalent; once real answers come in we will check that they behave the same, and say so here.
How scoring works
A statistical model designed for forced-choice answers
Your most and least picks go into a statistical model designed for forced-choice answers. It estimates where you sit on each of the 13 measures and, just as important, how sure it is about each one.
Item parameters and scoring details are proprietary. That is a business decision, not a scientific one, and it has a cost: outsiders cannot check our scoring line by line. We say that plainly rather than hide it.
The calculation is fixed: the same answers, on the same version, always give the same result.
Every result is stored with the version of the questions and the scoring that produced it, so when either changes, older results can be traced and re-read.
Evidence thresholds
What has to line up before we name a pattern
Calmistry shows nothing it is not reasonably sure of. Three rules decide what appears.
- A measure shows only once it is in focusEach measure appears only when your answers pin it down well enough (measured well enough to show). Until then it is greyed out as “Not measured yet”, not guessed.
- Your surface needs all three channelsWhether stress tends to bounce off, sink in or go straight out first is named only when all three are in focus, because the surface is a comparison between them.
- A material needs most of the pictureThe closest material is named only when enough of the 13 are in focus to compare you with all twelve. Short quizzes say “closest so far”.
How sure we are: three bands
Every result carries one of three labels, so you can tell a first outline from a settled read:
- First readA first outline. Most situation quizzes land here. Useful for recognition, not for big conclusions.
- Fairly sureMost measures are in focus; a few edges are still soft.
- Very sureEvery measure was checked several times over. Only the full profile gets here.
When the answers are mixed
Ties are shown, not hidden
Many people sit between two materials. When that happens the full profile names the next closest one too (the runner-up) and says how close it is: almost a tie, close behind, or a clear lead.
When a short quiz cannot separate two materials, the result says so: “Still a rough sketch: closest so far is …”. More rounds, from another quiz or the full profile, settle it. Rounds you have already answered carry over and are never asked twice.
Limits
What is experimental, what is metaphor, what Calmistry cannot infer
Experimental
- Matching a practice to a pattern. The practices have general evidence behind them; whether a matched one helps more than any other is untested.
- Box roles and group comparisons.
- Treating playful and plain wording as equivalent.
- The 13-measure structure itself, until real-data checks are in.
Metaphor
- Materials, surfaces (Shiny, Thirsty, Buzzy) and tribes are names for response patterns. People are not materials.
- “Half-life”, “fatigue” and “creep” borrow engineering words; nothing is measured in hours or newtons.
- We found no peer-reviewed test of the stress-as-load comparison itself. It is a teaching device.
What it cannot infer
- No diagnosis. It is not a mental-health assessment and cannot rule anything in or out.
- No prediction. It does not forecast events at work, in love or in health.
- Not fixed. Patterns tend to shift with load, season, support and practice; your result is a snapshot of your answers.
- Not a stress level. It describes how pressure tends to behave on you, not how much you are carrying right now.
- Not a ranking. No material, surface or measure is better than another.
If things feel heavy right now, talk to someone you trust or to a doctor. A quiz is not the right tool for that moment.
Claims and evidence
Every claim on this page, labelled
Each claim is written as an observed pattern, a plausible mechanism and the strength of the evidence.
-
Observed in studies Moderate
- What studies found
- People differ more in how strongly they react to the same everyday stressor than in how many stressors they meet.
- One explanation
- How a demand is read, and how sensitive someone is to it, shapes the response more than the event alone.
- Evidence
- Several studies or a meta-analysis support it, with mixed sizes or open questions.
Bolger & Schilling 1991Diary study
- Who
- 339 people
- Conditions
- Minor everyday stressful events over 6 weeks
- Method
- Daily reports of stressful events and mood
- Observed
- For people high in neuroticism (prone to worry and upset), stronger reactions to daily stressors explained twice as much extra distress as facing more stressors.
- Design
- Diary study
Personality and the problems of everyday life: the role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. Journal of Personality. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00253.x
Lazarus & Folkman 1984Book
- Conditions
- Psychological stress across health, emotion and stages of life
- Method
- Theory drawing on two decades of research, with literature reviews
- Observed
- Set out a theory of stress built on two ideas: how people size up a situation (appraisal) and what they do about it (coping).
- Design
- Book
Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer (book).
-
Observed in studies Moderate
- What studies found
- Forced-choice questionnaires are harder to fake than rating scales, though not immune.
- One explanation
- When the options are equally desirable, the flattering answer is not available to pick.
- Evidence
- Several studies or a meta-analysis support it, with mixed sizes or open questions.
Cao & Drasgow 2019Meta-analysis
- Who
- Studies comparing personality test scores under low and high stakes
- Conditions
- Forced-choice personality questions in real or simulated job selection
- Method
- Pooled score inflation between low and high stakes
- Observed
- Forced-choice personality tests showed little score inflation under high stakes, much less than standard single-statement tests.
- Design
- Meta-analysis
Does forcing reduce faking? A meta-analytic review of forced-choice personality measures in high-stakes situations. Journal of Applied Psychology. doi:10.1037/apl0000414
-
Observed in studies Strong
- What studies found
- Feeling that a description fits you is weak evidence that it is right.
- One explanation
- General, kind statements fit almost everyone, so “that’s so me” happens either way.
- Evidence
- Large reviews or meta-analyses agree on the pattern.
Forer 1949Field experiment
- Who
- Students in a classroom
- Observed
- Students rated a generic personality description, given identically to all of them, as a very good description of themselves.
- Design
- Field experiment (summarised from the title; no abstract available)
The fallacy of personal validation: a classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/h0059240
-
Observed in studies Moderate
- What studies found
- Grouping people into a few types loses information compared with measuring dimensions.
- One explanation
- Most people sit between types, so a single label hides where they actually are.
- Evidence
- Several studies or a meta-analysis support it, with mixed sizes or open questions.
Donnellan & Robins 2010Narrative review
- Conditions
- Three common personality types
- Method
- Brief history and review of research
- Observed
- Research repeatedly found three personality types, resilient, overcontrolled and undercontrolled, though their use remained debated.
- Design
- Narrative review
Resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality types: issues and controversies. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00313.x
-
Observed in studies Strong
- What studies found
- Response patterns vary from day to day and drift across adulthood.
- One explanation
- Traits describe averages over many moments; situations and life stages move the moments.
- Evidence
- Large reviews or meta-analyses agree on the pattern.
Fleeson 2001Diary study
- Design
- Diary study (summarised from the title; no abstract available)
Toward a structure- and process-integrated view of personality: traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.1011
Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer 2006Meta-analysis
- Who
- 92 samples from longitudinal studies
- Conditions
- Personality across the life course
- Method
- Pooled average changes in traits over time
- Observed
- People became more conscientious, emotionally stable and socially dominant with age, especially between 20 and 40.
- Design
- Meta-analysis
Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1
-
Observed in studies Strong
- What studies found
- After hard events, most people return to their usual level of functioning.
- One explanation
- Resilience is the common path, not a rare gift; patterns describe how, not whether, people recover.
- Evidence
- Large reviews or meta-analyses agree on the pattern.
Bonanno 2004Narrative review
- Who
- Adults facing loss or potentially traumatic events
- Conditions
- Bereavement and potentially traumatic events
- Method
- Review of research evidence
- Observed
- Most people exposed to loss or trauma kept functioning with only minor, brief disruption, and this resilience was more common than often believed.
- Design
- Narrative review
Loss, trauma, and human resilience. American Psychologist. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20
Galatzer-Levy, Huang & Bonanno 2018Systematic review
- Who
- 54 studies of people after potentially traumatic events
- Conditions
- Potentially traumatic events
- Method
- Compared response patterns over time and pooled how common each was
- Observed
- Resilience was the most common pattern, about 65.7% on average, followed by recovery, lasting difficulty and delayed onset.
- Design
- Systematic review
Trajectories of resilience and dysfunction following potential trauma. Clinical Psychology Review. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2018.05.008
-
Calmistry hypothesis Untested here
- What our model proposes
- Matching a practice to a response pattern helps more than an unmatched one.
- Why we think so
- Different patterns may need different kinds of release (moving it out, writing it down, quiet).
- Evidence
- A Calmistry idea or metaphor. We have not tested it on real people yet.
-
Calmistry hypothesis Untested here
- What our model proposes
- Stress behaves like a load on a material.
- Why we think so
- A teaching metaphor that gives separate research ideas one shared vocabulary.
- Evidence
- A Calmistry idea or metaphor. We have not tested it on real people yet.
Sources
Bibliography
Every source cited on this page. Links open the paper’s DOI.
- Almeida 2005. Resilience and vulnerability to daily stressors assessed via diary methods. Current Directions in Psychological Science. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00336.x
- Bolger & Schilling 1991. Personality and the problems of everyday life: the role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. Journal of Personality. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00253.x
- Bonanno & Burton 2013. Regulatory flexibility: an individual differences perspective on coping and emotion regulation. Perspectives on Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/1745691613504116
- Bonanno 2004. Loss, trauma, and human resilience. American Psychologist. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20
- Brosschot, Gerin & Thayer 2006. The perseverative cognition hypothesis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2005.06.074
- Cao & Drasgow 2019. Does forcing reduce faking? A meta-analytic review of forced-choice personality measures in high-stakes situations. Journal of Applied Psychology. doi:10.1037/apl0000414
- Carleton, Norton & Asmundson 2007. Fearing the unknown: a short version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.03.014
- Cheng, Lau & Chan 2014. Coping flexibility and psychological adjustment to stressful life changes: a meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/a0037913
- Crum, Salovey & Achor 2013. Rethinking stress: the role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/a0031201
- Donnellan & Robins 2010. Resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality types: issues and controversies. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00313.x
- Fleeson 2001. Toward a structure- and process-integrated view of personality: traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.1011
- Forer 1949. The fallacy of personal validation: a classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/h0059240
- Galatzer-Levy, Huang & Bonanno 2018. Trajectories of resilience and dysfunction following potential trauma. Clinical Psychology Review. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2018.05.008
- Gross & John 2003. Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
- Gross 1998. The emerging field of emotion regulation: an integrative review. Review of General Psychology. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
- Guidi et al. 2021. Allostatic load and its impact on health: a systematic review. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. doi:10.1159/000510696
- Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson 1993. Emotional contagion. Current Directions in Psychological Science. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.ep10770953
- Houben, Van Den Noortgate & Kuppens 2015. The relation between short-term emotion dynamics and psychological well-being: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/a0038822
- Kanner et al. 1981. Comparison of two modes of stress measurement: daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events. Journal of Behavioral Medicine. doi:10.1007/BF00844845
- Kross & Ayduk 2017. Self-distancing: theory, research, and current directions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2016.10.002
- Kuppens, Allen & Sheeber 2010. Emotional inertia and psychological maladjustment. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/0956797610372634
- Lazarus & Folkman 1984. Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer (book).
- McEvoy et al. 2019. The impact of methodological and measurement factors on transdiagnostic associations with intolerance of uncertainty: a meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2019.101778
- McEwen 1998. Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine. doi:10.1056/NEJM199801153380307
- Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco & Lyubomirsky 2008. Rethinking rumination. Perspectives on Psychological Science. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00088.x
- Ottaviani et al. 2016. Physiological concomitants of perseverative cognition: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/bul0000036
- Rimé 2009. Emotion elicits the social sharing of emotion: theory and empirical review. Emotion Review. doi:10.1177/1754073908097189
- Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer 2006. Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1
- Rutter 2012. Resilience as a dynamic concept. Development and Psychopathology. doi:10.1017/S0954579412000028
- Seery, Holman & Silver 2010. Whatever does not kill us: cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/a0021344
Change history
What changed, and when
| Date | Version | Change |
|---|---|---|
| method-1.1 | Added “Where the evidence stops”: what is published, what Calmistry proposes, what is not validated yet, and how practices are suggested. | |
| method-1.0 | First published: measures, question development, scoring at a high level, evidence thresholds, validation status, limits and sources. | |
| Questions csmi-2.1 | Five statements rewritten so the playful and plain wordings feel equally flattering. Scoring unchanged. |