Methodology
SAMRUM builds on well-established psychological research frameworks, but is not a clinical test or diagnostic tool.
Research foundation
SAMRUM is inspired by two well-established research frameworks:
OCEAN (Big Five)
The dominant model in personality psychology, describing five core dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
IPC (Interpersonal Circumplex)
A model for relational behavior based on two axes: dominance/submission and warmth/hostility. Used to understand dynamics between people.
In the app, we translate this into a family language with 10 themes from everyday life – not abstract personality types.
Adaptation to a family context
Big Five and IPC are primarily validated in individual and work contexts. Research suggests that the personality structure is robust across contexts — including families. Here's how we've adapted it:
Family-adapted questions
We reformulate questions to family situations ("at home", "in the family") and add situational items that capture dynamics between people. The Big Five structure has been shown to be robust across contexts (Soto & John, 2017; Donnellan et al., 2006).
Open-source item bank
Our questions are inspired by IPIP (International Personality Item Pool) — an open, free item bank (Goldberg et al., 2006). We've adapted and reformulated them for a family context with situational items and trade-off items that capture dynamics between people. This gives us flexibility without licensing restrictions.
From academic model to everyday language
In the app, you'll never encounter terms like "neuroticism" or "agreeableness". We translate into a family language with 10 themes — but the foundation is the same.
The 10 family themes
Reports use these themes to describe patterns. They're continuous traits – not categories or types. There's no "right" or "wrong" end.
Need for structure
Need for fixed routines and predictability in everyday life.
Predictability ↔ Change
Thriving on repetition versus energy from variation and new experiences.
Social energy
Energy from being together versus need for alone time and quiet.
Warmth & contact style
Need for closeness, expressing care, and tolerance for distance.
Boundaries & direction
Tendency to take charge in decisions versus following others' initiative.
Emotional reactivity
Intensity of reactions and time to calm down again.
Repair after conflict
Speed and willingness to restore after disagreement.
Fairness filter
Sensitivity to inequality and favoritism in the family.
Everyday persistence
Tendency to finish tasks and keep to agreements.
Calm under pressure
Ability to keep overview and tone when things get tense.
Systemic approach
SAMRUM describes patterns in the interaction between people — not properties of the individual.
Loops, not blame
Conflicts are described as mutual cycles: "Alma reacts → Julie withdraws → Alma escalates." Never as linear cause-and-effect. This circular causality is the core principle of systemic family therapy (Bateson, 1972; Watzlawick et al., 1967).
The pattern is the system
No person "is" a pattern. The pattern emerges in the interaction between two people's data. The same person can have completely different patterns with different family members (Minuchin, 1974; Gottman, 1994).
Subsystems in the family
A family is several relationships at once: the couple, siblings, parent-child. Our reports analyze each subsystem as a distinct dynamic within the overall system.
Moment guides after conflicts
"Right now" uses the same systemic loop analysis in real-time: after an argument, the guide identifies your active pattern and creates a plan based on both profiles. The repair window closes gradually (Gottman & Silver, 2015), and confirmation bias distorts perception during activation (Kahneman, 2011). The guide validates the feeling without confirming the conclusion.
What we deliberately avoid
SAMRUM is designed with clear boundaries for what the tool does and doesn't do.
- ✕No diagnoses
We don't diagnose ADHD, autism, anxiety, or other conditions. That's for professionals.
- ✕Differences are patterns
Reports describe differences as patterns – not as flaws or shortcomings.
- ✕No therapeutic guidance
Reports don't provide therapy. For serious challenges, we recommend professional help.
- ✕No "right/wrong"
Our language avoids morally loaded words. Differences are differences, not faults.
- ✕No numbers or percentages
Users never see scores, percentiles, or numerical comparisons.
Adapted for children and teenagers
Children and teenagers are described differently from adults — with respect for their development and perspective.
Children described in situations
Children are measured on the same 10 themes, but results are described in situations: "In situations with many people, Oliver tends to withdraw" — never as fixed traits: "Oliver is introverted." Research in developmental psychology suggests that stable trait attributions are problematic for children under 13 (Piaget, 1952; Vygotsky, 1978).
Teenagers have their own principles
Teenagers communicate better side-by-side than face-to-face. Pressure for conversation shuts down, availability opens up (Steinberg, 2001; Keijsers & Poulin, 2013). We never use words like "puberty", "hormones" or "your brain isn't fully developed."
Never comparison
Siblings are never compared. They are different individuals with different developmental curves. Comparison activates rivalry and internalized inadequacy (Dunn, 2002; Kramer, 2010).
Expectations must match capacity
A child who "loses focus after 10 minutes" HAS worked for 10 minutes. Persistence is a developmental curve, not a character flaw. Expectations must match the child's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978).
How we calculate and present results
The themes are designed to be neutral: neither end is "better" – both high and low scores have strengths and challenges depending on context.
Scoring
Each theme is measured with multiple questions. Reverse-worded questions are flipped before calculation to ensure consistency and catch random response patterns. The theme score is the average of all questions on that theme. Sub-areas (subfacets) are used to explain nuances but don't change the theme score itself. This gives a composite picture per theme rather than individual questions.
Age adaptation
The test exists in three versions adapted for adults, teenagers, and children – with different numbers of questions, scaling, and age-appropriate language.
Data quality
Each theme gets a confidence level based on coverage and balance in the questions. When confidence is low, the wording becomes more cautious, and if overall data quality is too low, we don't generate a report.
Zones and norming
Internally, we compare results to expected levels per age group and translate them into five broad zones (e.g., lower/middle/higher tendency). We show zones rather than numbers to avoid over-precision. In v1, we use conservative standard assumptions until we have enough data to establish more precise norms per theme. The zones are therefore best understood as tendencies for reflection and dialogue – not as a precise placement in a reference population.
Snapshot
Results are a snapshot, not a permanent truth. Life situations, stress, and age affect the answers. A test taken six months later may look different.
Psychometric quality
We assess internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) across many responses when the data foundation is large enough. This is a property of the questionnaire as a whole – not of one person's response – and therefore isn't shown in individual reports.
Privacy
Raw test answers are always private. No family members can see each other's answers – not even in reports.
Report texts
AI transforms the results into readable text. Reports describe patterns and suggest conversation starters and small experiments. The focus is shared language and dialogue – a starting point for conversation.
Status and transparency
SAMRUM is a reflection tool, not a clinical test instrument. We want to be clear about what we've done — and what we haven't yet.
What we've done
- ✓Items inspired by IPIP and adapted to a family context with situational and trade-off items
- ✓Internal review of questions, axes, and report principles
- ✓Three age-adapted versions with different language, scaling, and number of questions
- ✓Iteration based on pilot testing and user feedback
- ✓Conservative norming assumptions in v1, with zones rather than precise scores
What we haven't published yet
- ○Public reliability report (internal consistency per theme)
- ○Public factor structure (confirmatory factor analysis)
- ○Representative norming per age group
- ○Documentation for comparability across age versions
- ○External validation or peer review
Results should therefore be used as conversation starters and hypotheses for reflection — not as objective truths or clinical assessments.
Academic references
SAMRUM's approach is inspired by established research in personality psychology, relationship science, systemic therapy, and developmental psychology. Here are the key sources.
- Ainsworth, M.D.S. et al. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press.
- Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Basic Books.
- Costa, P.T. & McCrae, R.R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Psychological Assessment Resources.
- Donnellan, M.B., Oswald, F.L., Baird, B.M. & Lucas, R.E. (2006). The Mini-IPIP Scales: Tiny-Yet-Effective Measures of the Big Five. Psychological Assessment.
- Dunn, J. (2002). Children's Friendships: The Beginnings of Intimacy. Blackwell.
- Fonagy, P. et al. (2002). Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. Other Press.
- Goldberg, L.R. et al. (2006). The International Personality Item Pool. Personality and Individual Differences.
- Gottman, J.M. (1994). What Predicts Divorce? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Gottman, J.M. & Silver, N. (2015). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Harmony Books.
- Johnson, S.M. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Little, Brown Spark.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Keijsers, L. & Poulin, F. (2013). Developmental changes in parent–child communication throughout adolescence. Developmental Psychology.
- Kramer, L. (2010). The essential ingredients of successful sibling relationships. Child Development Perspectives.
- Miller, W.R. & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational Interviewing (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.
- Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. International Universities Press.
- Soto, C.J. & John, O.P. (2017). The Next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Steinberg, L. (2001). We know some things: Parent–adolescent relationships in retrospect and prospect. Journal of Research on Adolescence.
- Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
- Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J.H. & Jackson, D.D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human Communication. W.W. Norton.
- Wiggins, J.S. (1979). A Psychological Taxonomy of Trait-Descriptive Terms: The Interpersonal Domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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