Methodology

How Civic Instinct Profile works

Civic Instinct Profile (CIP), powered by xAIO PoliSent, is a scenario-based instrument designed to describe how people reason through civic tradeoffs. The goal is interpretable civic insight, not partisan sorting.

Scenario-based measurement

CIP uses practical civic scenarios rather than trivia or party-label prompts. Each scenario asks how you would prioritize tradeoffs in real public-life situations.

Twelve Civic Instinct Dimensions

Responses are mapped to 12 Civic Instinct Dimensions (CIDs). These are latent governance preferences, not ideological badges or judgments about character.

Archetypes as descriptive centroids

Archetypes are generated by distance-to-centroid matching across CID scores. They summarize common civic patterns, but they are not rigid identity buckets.

Versioned and improvable model

Question packs, scoring logic, and interpretation copy are versioned over time so the instrument can improve while preserving past session integrity.

What CIP does not claim

• Not a partisan quiz.
• Not a factual civics exam.
• Not a left-right scorecard.
• Not a deterministic labeler that tells users who they are.

Interpretation standards

Result narratives are written to stay neutral, descriptive, and non-judgmental. Profiles describe tendencies in institutional trust, rights-security tradeoffs, reform posture, and related dimensions. They do not claim certainty about personal morality or political worth.

As the instrument matures, updated versions will improve question quality and calibration while keeping historical sessions intact for longitudinal comparison.