How we measure confidence — honestly.

Where does my starting number come from?

Your baseline Confidence Index is derived from your five-question assessment — chiefly how often you currently feel confident, adjusted by where and how you want to grow. It lands in a realistic ~35–45 range and becomes a floor your standing never drops below, because confidence is something you build from here, not a score you're handed.

How does the number go up?

Above your baseline floor, the index is a weighted blend of four dimensions you can each grow: Action (real-world challenges, weighted most because doing the hard thing is the strongest driver of self-efficacy), Voice (speaking practice, weighted lightest), Momentum (how many distinct days you've practiced recently), and Awareness (setting a focus and checking in). What the Progress page shows you is literally how the number is computed — the meters are the model.

Each dimension climbs with saturating returns — your early actions in an area move it the most, then it eases toward, without ever reaching, full. Every action counts once toward its own dimension and once toward Momentum, so a single action can nudge two meters; that's by design, not double-counting. Pause, and only the Momentum part eases down gently — the practice you've banked stays with you.

What are the four dimensions?

Action, Voice, Momentum, and Awareness. Each maps only to things you actually do in SURGO, each is independently improvable, and each is grounded in established behavioral research (see the references below).

Why weekly snapshots?

Once a week SURGO records a snapshot of your index, which powers your progress chart and the home sparkline. Trends over weeks are more meaningful — and more motivating — than moment-to-moment jitter.

How is voice measured objectively?

Voice sessions are transcribed, then scored on concrete signals: speaking pace in words per minute, filler-word counts, a clarity score from your disfluency rate, a count of noticeable pauses, and a short delivery read. These are observations you can act on, not judgments.

What SURGO is not

No. The index estimates your engagement with confidence-building behaviors — it is not a validated psychometric or clinical measure, not a diagnosis, and not therapy. Two people with the same number are not equally confident; the number reflects app activity. Its dimensions are inspired by behavioral research, but SURGO does not provide treatment. If you're in crisis or clinical distress, SURGO points you to professional resources instead of coaching you.

References

The dimensions are inspired by (not clinical applications of) this peer-reviewed research. Where a source comes from a different domain, the connection is an analogy, noted honestly.

1. Mastery experiences — successfully performing the target behavior — are the strongest source of self-efficacy, which anchors the Action dimension and its heavier weight. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.
2. Higher self-efficacy is reliably associated with better performance (weighted mean r ≈ .38 across 114 studies) — a correlational link, not proof of cause, but reason enough to track confidence-building activity. Stajkovic, A. D., & Luthans, F. (1998). Self-efficacy and work-related performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 240–261.
3. By analogy to the spacing effect in learning, distributed practice produces more durable results than the same amount massed together — so Momentum rewards distinct active days spread over time rather than cramming. Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380.
4. Missing a single day does not measurably harm habit formation, which is why Momentum stays forgiving of one gap. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.
5. Monitoring goal progress promotes goal attainment, especially when progress is physically recorded — supporting the check-in and focus habits behind Awareness. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229.
6. As an inspired extrapolation from clinical fear-extinction research (not a validated confidence finding), gains from facing uncomfortable situations appear to generalize better when those situations vary — informing Action's reward for range. Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zbozinek, T., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23.
7. Implementation intentions (if-then plans) meaningfully improve goal attainment (d ≈ 0.65 across 94 tests), supporting the daily-focus habit in Awareness. Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.
8. Reframing pre-performance nerves as excitement (rather than trying to calm down) can improve how people perform — the plain, non-clinical idea behind Awareness's 'notice and reframe' framing. Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144–1158.