The IDI is a cross-culturally valid and reliable instrument that measures the way an individual or group experiences cultural differences and similarities.  This instrument creates a “worldview profile” to indicate your capacity for exercising intercultural competence and identify issues that are limiting or facilitating the development of intercultural competence.

This instrument is not a measurement of how much you know or don’t know. It is not a climate survey.  It is not a measurement of your attitude, how prejudiced you are, how racist, homophobic or classist.  The IDI does not generate a label—it describes how you are currently approaching cultural differences and gives you a direction in which to develop more intercultural competence. 

None of the stages are good or bad in themselves, even if they are not the “most developed” in terms of intercultural competence.  The IDI results are primarily useful as it relates to intercultural encounters—your profile is not a picture of your own whole personality.  

Instead, it is a measure of how you currently experience cultural difference and how you can increase your capacity to experience cultural difference from a more complex perspective.