Glossary

Every technical term used across the assessment, results, and team analysis.

Layers

personality: What you are like across situations - the visible archetype layer of your result. Built on validated traits but the labels (Lion, Elephant, etc.) are framing devices, not psychometric categories.
trait: An underlying dimension that moves when behaviour changes. The Big Five (OCEAN) is the dominant empirical trait model; Savanna also reports cognitive-style spectra (ADHD-style, autism-style, anxiety-style) as continuous trait dimensions.
aptitude: What you can do well. In Savanna this means applied judgement on workplace scenarios (an SJT-style read), not raw cognitive ability. For general intelligence (g) use a purpose-built test.
sjt: Situational judgement test. A workplace-aptitude method that scores responses to realistic scenarios against expert-consensus best-practice weights. The 10 scenario items on Savanna form a small SJT-style instrument.
applied judgement: Your normalised score (0-100) on the SJT scenario items. Higher means your choices align more often with the leadership / coaching literature consensus on the most effective response.
general cognitive ability: Also called "g". The single strongest individual-level predictor of job performance across roles (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). Savanna does not measure g.

Frameworks

big five: The Big Five (OCEAN) is the dominant empirical personality model: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism. Validated across cultures since the 1980s.
hexaco: HEXACO extends the Big Five with a sixth factor, Honesty-Humility, derived from cross-language lexical studies (Ashton & Lee, 2007).
disc: DISC is a workplace behavioural model (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness). Useful for behavioural framing; less psychometrically validated than the Big Five.
belbin: Belbin Team Roles is a framework for team contributions and how they complement each other. The basis for our pairs-well-with / clashes-with matrix.
cliftonstrengths: CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) is a 34-theme talents framework grouped into Executing, Influencing, Relationship-building, and Strategic Thinking domains.
dimensional model: The view that conditions like ADHD, autism, and anxiety sit on continuous spectra in the population rather than as discrete categories. Strong empirical support across twin and large-N studies.

Big Five traits

openness: Openness to experience: curiosity, novelty-seeking, willingness to consider unconventional ideas.
conscientiousness: Conscientiousness: organisation, persistence, follow-through, impulse control.
extraversion: Extraversion: social energy, assertiveness, positive affect, stimulation-seeking.
agreeableness: Agreeableness: warmth, cooperation, empathy, willingness to defer to others.
neuroticism: Neuroticism: tendency to experience negative affect (anxiety, anger, sadness) and emotional volatility.

Result terms

primary archetype: The archetype with your highest normalised score across the assessment.
secondary archetype: The archetype with your second-highest score. It modifies how the primary shows up day-to-day.
trait breakdown: Per-archetype scores normalised to 0-100 against the maximum positive contribution achievable across the questionnaire.
cognitive style: A descriptive read of how you process attention, novelty, and structure. Drawn from ADHD and autism research; describes preferences only, not symptoms.
growth edges: The shadow side of the same traits that make this archetype effective - patterns to watch for under stress.
normalised score: Each archetype score is divided by the maximum positive weight achievable across the questionnaire, then multiplied to 0-100. This makes scores comparable across archetypes.
weight: Each answer option contributes signed weights to one or more archetypes. Scaled items contribute (value - midpoint) x weight - disagreement subtracts, agreement adds.

Team analysis

cohesion: Percentage of working pairs in the team whose archetypes pair well (Belbin-style complementarity).
tension: Percentage of working pairs whose archetypes are flagged as friction-prone. Not a verdict - a signal to put explicit working agreements in place.
diversity: How many of the eight archetypes are present on the team. High diversity covers more strengths; low diversity often means shared blind spots.
functional coverage: A read of which broad team functions are represented (leadership, stewardship, launch, depth, social/BD, coordination, execution, strategy). Gaps suggest missing capability.
organogram: Visual reporting hierarchy of a team. In Savanna, each team member can have a "reports to" supervisor and an optional team role; the resulting tree is read alongside the team's archetype composition to flag whether the structure plays to the team's strengths.
structure fit: Read on whether the current organogram suits the team's archetypes. Computed from per-pair complementarity along each reporting line: high fit means most lines read as natural collaborators; low fit means leads and reports clash often enough to warrant explicit working agreements.
natural lead: Archetypes that historically read well as the visible head of a team - decisive, set direction, hold the room. Lion, Eagle, and Elephant.
natural deputy: Archetypes that historically read well as the deputy / chief-of-staff seat - process-disciplined, people-glue, calm in crisis. Meerkat, Elephant, Hyena.
natural ic: Archetypes that lead best by example as principal individual contributors rather than as managers. Rhino, Giraffe, Cheetah.

Cognitive style

monotropism: A style of attention that flows through a small number of intense interests rather than spreading across many. Common in autistic cognition (Murray, Lesser & Lawson, 2005).
hyperfocus: Sustained intense focus on one task, often associated with ADHD; can produce explosive output but is hard to start and stop on demand.
time blindness: Difficulty intuiting how much time has passed or will be needed for a task. A common ADHD-adjacent experience.
systemising: A drive to analyse, build, and predict rule-governed systems. Higher on average in autistic cognition (Baron-Cohen, 2008).
masking: Consciously performing expected social behaviours that do not come naturally. Documented in autistic adults as "camouflaging" (Hull et al., 2017) and associated with cumulative emotional cost.
rejection sensitivity: A pattern of strong, often disproportionate, response to perceived criticism or social rejection. Documented in adults with ADHD and elevated trait anxiety.
executive function: The set of self-regulation processes (working memory, inhibition, planning, task initiation) that organise goal-directed behaviour. Disruption is central to Barkley's ADHD model (2015).
trait anxiety: A stable disposition to experience negative affect across situations, distinct from in-the-moment anxiety (Spielberger, 1983).

Spectrum reads

adhd style: A descriptive read of self-reported preferences that correlate with ADHD-style cognition (hyperfocus, novelty-seeking, time-blindness, executive-function struggles). Not a diagnosis.
autism style: A descriptive read of self-reported preferences that correlate with autistic cognition (pattern depth, monotropic focus, sensory load, routine, change aversion). Not a diagnosis.
anxiety style: A descriptive read of self-reported preferences that correlate with elevated trait anxiety (rejection sensitivity, masking, rumination, social-energy depletion). Not a diagnosis.

Access tiers

lite tier: The default account level. Take the quiz and see your top archetype. Deep report and company features are gated.
full tier: Approved access level. Unlocks the deep report, the companies layer, and team analysis.