Elias Porter creates his first personality assessment — an eight-hour test to select public assistance workers for the Oregon State Public Welfare Commission.
Under the advisement of psychologist Carl Rogers, Elias Porter publishes a pioneering study documenting the effectiveness of client-centered methods of therapy while attending Ohio State University.
The study, which used audio recordings of Rogers' sessions with patients, would mark the beginning of Rogers and Porter's 10-year working relationship.
1942-43
1945
Porter moves to Chicago with classmate, Tom Gordon, to help Rogers establish the University of Chicago’s Counseling Center, which provides help to returning World War II veterans.
During this time, demand for counseling far outstripped capacity, and group therapy was invented by necessity.
Porter begins to construct psychometrics to validate the personality types described in Eric Fromm’s Man for Himself (published in 1947).
By measuring personality types and traits through assessments, Porter believed therapists would be able to save time during the self-discovery process with patients amid the high demand for counseling.
1949
1950-51
Porter publishes An Introduction to Therapeutic Counseling (1950).
Rogers wrote the forward to the book, saying, “…the ingenuity which Dr. Porter has shown in developing devices which compel self-examination and facilitate attitudinal reorganization, incites my admiration. He has succeeded where to me failure seemed almost certain.”
Rogers publishes his landmark book Client-Centered Therapy (1951), citing the influence of Porter’s work.
Porter publishes his first psychometric, the Person Relatedness Test.
This was developed during his time working with Rogers, where he also learned to use Q-sorts – in which people sort cards printed with personality traits – as a method of measurement that reflected the human experience of multiple traits interacting simultaneously.
1953
1960s
Porter joins the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.
While there, Porter publishes Manpower Development (1964) a pioneering work in systems and human factors training which analyzed how people interact with the system to produce results.
Porter launches Personal Strengths Assessment Service, which offers
his new assessment, the Strength Deployment Inventory, the earliest version of today’s SDI 2.0.
1971-72
Photo from 1975
1973
Porter revises the SDI triangle and begins producing it in color, making the SDI the first psychometric to use color-coded language.
Porter incorporates his company in California as Personal Strengths Publishing. He leaves teaching to pursue the business full-time with his wife, Sara Maloney Porter.
Porter coins the term “overdone strengths,” crediting Fromm with the concept.
1976
Porter with his wife, Sara.
1977
After years of research, Porter validates the Hub as the seventh personality type and adds a circle to the SDI triangle to differentiate it from the other six types
Porter publishes the eighth revision of the SDI Manual of Administration.
1985
1986
Porter introduces a structured training program called the Relationship Awareness Basic Course.
This course included two card-sorts, one for strengths and one for overdone strengths.
Sarah Maloney Porter sells Personal Strengths Publishing to Bob Tomkinson, a friend of Porter, and a long-time user of the SDI, and Tim Scudder, who became the CEO of the company.
1995
1996
Personal Strengths Publishing releases the Premier Edition of the SDI.
It is the first version of the SDI to represent the full personality typology of seven Motivational Value Systems and 13 Conflict Sequences, including card-sorts for strengths and overdone strengths.
An online platform is launched for administering the SDI, Strengths Portrait, Overdone Strengths Portrait, and Feedback and Expectations Editions of the assessments.
1999
2005-07
Scudder coins the term Relationship Intelligence (RQ), the application of insight to improve interactions and develop authentic interpersonal relationships, and uses the concept to advance Porter’s work.
The SDI is translated into over ten languages, making it available world wide.
Personal Strengths Publishing places an increasing emphasis on conflict management in all of its training programs, culminating in the publication of Have a Nice Conflict, by Tim Scudder, Mike Patterson, and Kent Mitchell.
2012
2013
Scudder publishes his doctoral dissertation, which provides the first empirical validation of Sigmund Freud’s libidinal types and support for Fromm’s non-productive orientations, both important precursors to Porter’s SDI assessment.
The boundaries of the SDI Triangle were revised. Notably, the Hub MVS became a hexagonal, rather than circular, shape.
Personal Strengths Publishing introduces the Core Strengths brand, with structured training programs that integrate SDI results in curriculum, presentation resources, and the beginnings of an online platform.
2014
2016
The next-generation SDI 2.0 is launched with the Results through Relationships program as a single, integrated assessment that produces four interrelated views of a person:
Motivational Value System
Conflict Sequence
Strengths Portrait
Overdone Strengths Portrait
Scudder contributes to a second edition of Michael Maccoby’s peer-reviewed Harvard Business School Press book, The Leaders We Need and What Makes Us Follow.
Training Industry first recognizes Core Strengths as a Top 20 Assessment Provider.
2018
2019
The SDI 2.0 becomes the basis for the Core Strengths Platform aimed to help people apply the insight gained from the SDI to improve Relationship Intelligence (RQ).
Association for Training and Development recognizes Core Strengths as Best of Show.
Core Strengths focuses on remote delivery and launches:
Digital Learner Guide
Self-paced Assessment
Virtual Facilitator Certification
Support for new languages
2020
2021
Core Strengths launches their Mobile App and Microsoft Outlook Add-In amid the need for more digital tools for remote and hybrid teams. They also release “Working with SDI 2.0” as a complete guide to understanding the assessment results.
1971-2021
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