Methodology

Six motivational layers

The Why We Decide framework distinguishes six layers of motivation. They are not types of people — they are sources decisions grow from. Each of us uses all of them; only the mix and the context differ.

• Survival — fear, punishment, safety. I decide so that I protect myself and the people close to me.
• Benefit — personal gain, advantage. I decide by what the choice will bring me and what it will cost me.
• Relationships — love, acceptance, loyalty. I decide with the people I care about in mind.
• Order — rules, responsibility, institutions. I decide by what is given and what was agreed.
• Principles — free agreement, human rights, fairness. I decide by principles that apply to everyone.
• Integrity — authenticity, universal values. I decide in line with who I am and what I believe.

The layers loosely follow developmental models of moral reasoning (Kohlberg, Kegan), but they are not stages of development or a scale of maturity. They are different sources of a decision; none of them makes a better person.

How the test works

The test is twenty-one short stories — three from each of seven areas of life: partnership, family, parenting, work, business, society, and everyday life. For each one:

1. you read a story with a decision,
2. you decide: yes / no,
3. you pick 1–2 reasons from the six on offer — each one stands for one layer.

When none of the reasons on offer fits you, you can say so. An answer like that still counts toward the run and toward covering the areas, but it adds a point to no layer — the result then rests on a thinner basis, and it tells you so.

A submitted answer can no longer be changed, and you cannot return to earlier dilemmas.

The key point is that the decision itself is not judged. In the Heinz dilemma neither "steal" nor "don't steal" is the right answer — what interests us is only the reason that leads you to the decision. Some dilemmas have a socially expected answer, a found wallet for example. That does not matter: what you picked is not what is judged, but why — and both options have six honestly written reasons.

How the result comes about

The main reason you pick brings its layer a whole point, the second reason half a point. The result is the percentage share of all six layers — your moral compass — together with a breakdown by area of life. The same person often decides differently in relationships than at work.

The percentages are shares of the sum of the points awarded, not shares of the decisions: someone who picks a second reason on part of the dilemmas has a different denominator from someone who picks only one.

When two or more layers end on the same value, the result names all of them and promotes none of them. A tie is not broken into a single winning layer.

The weights and the length of a run are settled. The interpretive texts for the layers are working versions and will be made more precise.

What else you will find in the result

Beside the main profile, the result shows four further views. They describe what you did in this run — they are not further scores or a diagnosis, and each one carries its own limits:

• Kohlberg's reading — how far the structure of the reasons you picked resembles stages of moral reasoning. What gets coded is the text of the reason, not you; some reasons stay unclassified, and the result says so.
• Tempo — where you decided fastest and where slowest. Speed says nothing about the quality of a decision, and we do not translate it into "System 1 and 2".
• Change and keeping — how often your decision changed the situation, and how often it left the situation as it was. For dilemmas with two wordings of the question we also show how other people answered — if there are already enough finished runs of the same content version for both wordings. It is a descriptive difference, not proof that the wording had an effect.
• Reason and decision — which layers, for you, defended both "yes" and "no", and whether the final answer differed from the first click. The record does not tell us why it differed.

Limits

• The test works with declared motivations — it measures how you yourself see your decision-making.
• Twenty-one dilemmas are a starting range; the profile gets sharper only with a larger bank of questions.
• The result is a snapshot, not a lasting label. The profile changes with your situation in life.