Who Developed The SORT Test©?

Mary Anne Knolle, Ph.D.  She has four college degrees – two in communication and two in psychology.  She has raised four children with her physician husband in a stepfamily.  She has been helping people reach their goals all of her professional life.  First as a teacher, then college instructor, and then a management consultant.  Later she added a private practice in psychology. 

She is also a mediator.

“Hi – I am Dr. Mary Anne Knolle, and I developed The SORT Test©.  There are so many interesting ways to apply psychology to make life better – across the course of our lives.

I enjoy learning about other professions and figuring out how psychology can work with other professions to make our lives better.

When AIDS hit I went to a cram course for internal medicine boards twice to understand more about AIDS and other life-threatening diseases that physicans who had patients with these diseases referred to me. In 1990, a physician, an attorney, a pastor, and I founded the Medical Psychological and Legal Society (MPALS)©.  The clients/patients have the advantage that their physicians, attorney, pastor, financial planner, and psychological professional who take care of them plan TOGETHER how to care for them.  Our Mission Statement is:  “Excellence across professions across cultures across the years.”

When all steps to save a marriage do not produce a decision to stay together I found a group that offers a cooperative alternative to a litigated divorce, The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.  Since 2006 I have worked with a team of two attorneys, a financial planner, and a psychology professional to get couples collaborative divorces.

After a divorce either the husband or wife may decide to select a different financial planner.  A Certified Divorce Financial Advisor (CDFA®) who also is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) would be a good choice for pre-divorce and post-divorce financial planning.  BakerAvenue Wealth Management (www.bakerave.com) has a Senior Wealth Advisory Manager who has both credentials and is fluent in English and Spanish, Sonja Borda, CFP.  Click her picture in “About” and then click VIEW SONJA’S LATEST ARTICLE to see “Getting Divorced?  Here are 5 Tax Tips.”

For the more than 30 years that I have been in the private practice of psychology I have always referred clients to financial planners.  We all need to fund the plans that we make for our lives.  My financial planner Scott and I have done investing together for 35 years.

I wrote The SORT Test© for investors and their financial planners – to give them a scientific way to understand the client’s risk tolerance.  So even if a husband and wife do not have a financial planner they know their risk tolerance in stress and normal conditions.  Now they can select investments that fit their risk tolerance profile.

How important is knowing a client’s risk tolerance in doing financial planning?

Michael Kitces, CFP®, Head of Planning Strategy at Buckingham Wealth Partners, tells us. The requirement that a financial advisor must “Know Your Client”, including his/her tolerance for taking risks, is a universal requirement amongst investor regulators around the world.”

Are many valid and reliable Risk Tolerance Questionnaires (RTQs) are available to clients and financial planners?

In his article, “The Sorry State of Risk Tolerance Questionnaires For Financial Planners,” (September 14, 2016 on his website www.kitces.com) Michael notes that Canadian financial planning software provider PlanPlus did a survey of RTQs around the world. 

…(He found) only 10 solution providers of any broad reach, (of those) only 30% were able to document any form of psychometric validity to their risk tolerance questions and process…only 10%  (of them) had been validated in any way, and only  16% were “fit for purpose” (with the rest either using poorly constructed questions, hopelessly conflated different factors, grossly overweighting a particular factor, or simply had no mechanisms to actually identify highly risk averse consumers).

How does The SORT Test© compare with the RTQS mentioned above?

How does it identify risk tolerance inherent in the investor?

Earlier I quoted John A. Lutjemeier, Ed. D., a psychology statistician and university professor, who evaluated The SORT Test©. Below is new information from his report. The financial planner’s responsibility includes finding the best match between the client’s ability to tolerate risk and the risk in the array of investments.  Fear and greed can be wild cards as a client can prefer a higher level of risk during normal or favorable conditions and a lower one in stress conditions. The financial service industry does not quantify risk tolerance inherent in the investor.

…What is needed is a scientific test of assessing the psychological risk tolerance profile inherent in the client.  Here Dr. John A. Lutjemeier tells us what does make an investor risk tolerance test credible.

A scientific test offers stability throughout the sometimes wide-ranging changes mentioned above in the investment market.  Such a test should be based on psychological constructs because psychological constructs, such as coping strengths, remain relatively stable throughout life.   Further, this test must provide a client risk tolerance in normal conditions as well as stress conditions (and it does).

Does The SORT Test do what an investor risk tolerance test should do?

Yes. And he reminds us: This test is the ONLY scientific test on the web based on a psychological construct (coping strengths) that assesses client risk tolerances and yields scores in normal and in stress conditions.

What does another financial planner say about the SORT Test©?

Dr. Knolle has used the SORT Test© to assess client risk tolerance first in management consulting and then in the private practice of psychology.  She has revised it for financial planning. The SORT Test© is the first to assesses the psychological risk the client feels INSIDE under Normal Market Conditions and Stress Market Conditions. This test tells the client’s preferred portfolio breakdown into % High Risk, % Medium Risk and % Low Risk in both Normal Market Conditions and Stress Market Conditions. 

So, the client and financial planner together can now match the Client Psychological Risk Tolerance Profile with the risk of each potential investment choice.”   Robert Clevenger, Jr., UBS Financial Services.

Certified Financial Planners, Estate Planners, Bankers, CPAs and other financial professionals now have a tested methodology to get a client’s Coping Strengths and Risk Tolerance (CART) Profile.

What happens when I take the test on this website?

1.  You pay for the test with either a credit card or Pay Pal.

2.  You take the test online.

3.  After you take the test:  Your get your “The SORT Test© Report” which gives you “Your Coping Strength And Risk Tolerance (CART) Chart.”  You can reaccess this report by logging into your account.

4.  If you invest with others:  They can get their “The SORT Test© Report,” too.  They print out their Report, too.

5.  Now you and your spouse/investment team member(s) can average your Report scores to put your scores on a shared Coping and Risk Tolerance (CART) Profile.