The Hartman Value Profile (HVP)

To Think is to Value

It’s a widely promoted concept that our core moral and ethical values drive our choices, actions, reactions, and behaviors. In reality, we make choices and take actions according to what we perceive has or will create the most value.

So it’s not so much our values, but rather, our conscious and subconscious perceptions and judgments of relative value (goodness and badness) that determine our choices, actions, reactions, and behaviors. Even our subconscious mind uses previously learned and habituated valuations as the basis for reactive responses.

That explains why people sometimes do things that are contrary to the values they espouse. In the moment, they simply don’t value their values sufficiently.

Dr. Hartman recognized that every person carries a unique set of mental models shaped by their knowledge and lived experiences, their understanding of the world and their place within it, their sense of self, and their needs, desires, goals, and fears.

Mental models are the internal structures of understanding through which a person interprets, evaluates, and navigates the world. They are the patterned assumptions, beliefs, and frameworks that shape how someone perceives situations, judges value, anticipates outcomes, and decides what to do next.

He believed that if we could identify a person's mental models and measure how well they align with the Hierarchy of Value, then we could understand how they think and make decisions, why they react or behave in certain ways, and even predict how well or how poorly they might perform in various tasks or circumstances.

After years of development and testing, Dr. Hartman created a unique, surprisingly simple, but amazingly powerful assessment that does exactly that. It’s called the "Hartman Value Profile."

The Hartman Value Profile, or HVP, has been the subject of multiple academic and commercial validation studies over numerous decades, including studies with large heterogeneous samples of working professionals, doctors, mental health patients, public employees, nurses, students, and cross-national samples.

These studies showed strong reliability using Cronbach’s alpha and test–retest reliability, as well as content, CON-struct, and discriminant validity. Additionally, criterion-related validity demonstrated significant, robust correlations with other instruments. Furthermore, an EEOC analysis showed no systematic bias by age, sex, or race.

The HVP is nothing like the behavioral and personality assessments you may be familiar with, both in terms of its methodology and what it identifies and measures.

Most personality and behavioral assessments rely on self-analysis, and, as we all know, people are often prone to self-deception and/or responding to such surveys based on how they think they should respond.

The HVP uses an entirely different methodology that is much less prone to manipulation. In fact, it has no questions. It uses a forced-ranking method, whereby you rank various words and phrases in a specific order according to the instructions provided.

The words and phrases used in the HVP are carefully selected and validated as “linguistic equivalents of axiological mathematical expressions.” Meaning, there is a direct correlation between each item and a specific position within the mathematical Hierarchy of Value.

The HVP has two separate sets of 18 words or phrases that you rank order. Set one is about your mental model of the world around you. Set two relates to your self-view.

For example, for set one, you rank the items according to your perception of the value (goodness or badness) of what the words and phrases represent. The best, the one you think has the most positive value, would be ranked as #1, and the worst, the one having the most negative value, would be #18.

Everything in between is ranked in a similar fashion – according to your perception of their relative value. The final ranked order of each set, reveals your current mental model of either your world-view, or your self-view.

With profound simplicity, the process mimics how we make meaning and perceive the value of everything our senses take in. This, in turn, drives our conscious and subconscious choices, decisions, actions, reactions, and behaviors.

Naturally, not everyone ranks the items in the same order. No two people have the same life experiences and, as a result, no two people think exactly the same way. In fact, there are 6.4 Quintillion (6,402,373,705,728,000) possible ways to order each of the 2 sets of 18 items (that’s 18 factorial). That’s more people than have ever existed.

Scoring the HVP for interpretation involves calculating the differences between the objective, mathematical Hierarchy of Value, and the individual's rankings. Dr. Hartman’s original interpretation model identified over 100 different mathematical calculations, each providing insights into the person's thinking.

Because life provides a constant stream of new and different experiences, a person's mental models can and do change throughout life. And, because the HVP is a snapshot of a person's mental models at the time it is taken, it can also be used to measure changes over time.

Most importantly, the axiological knowledge and intelligence that a course such as this provides,  combined with the result of one's own HVP assessment, is a roadmap for the kind of growth and transformation that can be career-enhancing and life-changing.

While the HVP assessment instrument is specific and well-proven, various organizations have developed their own unique methodologies for interpreting, presenting, and utilizing the assessment results. Some of these are very similar and differ only in style. Others are substantially different in their detail.

The HVP can be used for enhancing self-awareness, personal and professional development, coaching, and training, leadership development, hiring and selection, group dynamics and culture analysis, and even counseling and therapy.

So the analysis and report methods can be different, depending on the purpose for which the results are intended, and how the report developer or provider has designed them. In other words, the purpose of the report drives the attributes of the report. Sound familiar?

The Hartman Institute does not endorse or certify any particular reporting approach.

If you are looking to learn more, to experience the Hartman Value Profile, or to use it in your coaching, consulting, training, or counseling activities, you can search for Axiological Service Developers (ASDs) on the Hartman Institute’s website to help you get started.

Finally, we leave you with these words from Dr. Hartman, written in his autobiography and published in the book, Freedom to Live:

Just as natural science helps us use the strength of nature, axiological science will help us use the even greater strength of the human spirit to break out of the system that has hypnotized and enslaved us. Then we and our grandchildren will truly have, freedom to live.