Bias Check: Update

/ Jack Marshall

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Responding to my recent post on trying to identify one’s own political biases and the 39 questions that everyone agreed left much to be desired in dividing liberal from conservative, an old friend from both law school and the stage has suggested another resource to try. He is a professor of telecommunications at a prestigious Midwest university, and pointed me to a site called The Political Compass. It has a more nuanced set of questions, and multiple choice answers that will place you on a Left-Right (economic)/ Authoritarian-Libertarian (social) grid.

The site is clearly British, and obviously hasn’t been tended for a while: it looks like it was set prior to the 2012 election. I have other problems with it, not the least of which that it places Barack Obama in the Right/Authoritarian quadrant. The site charts past political leaders, and it looks to me like the President is the ideological clone of…Margaret Thatcher. I’d say it needs some tweaking.

I haven’t taken the test again to check, but how the program scores the distinction between agreeing or disagreeing and strongly agreeing or disagreeing  intrigues me; in my case, which I chose was a toss-up. (Update: I just took the test again with all “strongly’s” checked. The result was virtually the same—a tad more left and libertarian. That’s my first test result above. )

As you will see if you take the test, some of the questions are phrased to create a false choice, like.. If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations,  and All authority should be questioned, and Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theatres or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis.

Then there are the questions that are just bad, like “All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.” If you disagree, which part of the sentence are you disagreeing with? Or Good parents sometimes have to spank their children: huh? They have to, or may? When the children are infants? In college? Does sometimes mean now and then forever, or during a specific age-range, for a particular kind of misbehavior?

Some of the questions make me suspicious about their intent. This one, for example: The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline. It’s essential for children to learn discipline, especially self-discipline. Is this a trap to get me to admit to being a martinet who thinks children should be in military school? Some of the questions are just mysterious. What does this one—When you are troubled, it’s better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things—have to do with ideology? And doesn’t it make a difference whether what troubles you is something you have some control over? The Red Sox starting pitching troubles me, and so does the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming President. I deal with these a bit differently.

Here’s my least favorite question: In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded. Commanded? I won’t agree to that, but I believe that all functioning organizations need an effective chain of command or hierarchy of authority. But in a democracy, the people are theoretically “above,” no “below.”

I’m interested in your thoughts.

90 thoughts on “Bias Check: Update”

  1. “When you are troubled, it’s better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things”

    I think…and I could be wrong…that this is related to mental health. People who believe mental illness, such as depression, is best handled with thinking happy thoughts do exist. Such persons are likely to be opposed to health screenings for depression or more funding for mental illness facilities. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

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  2. ‘”from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a fundamentally good idea.’ Probably the worst idea ever. But similarly to the other bias checker, I wonder how some of these push the scales. Does spanking make you more authoritarian, or do they make that partisan, for instance. or ‘Astrology accurately explains many things.’ Please… Is that left/right, or authority/liberty?

    By the way: 2.31, -2.31.

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    • I’d swear I’ve seen all these questions countless times before, in some form or another, floating around the internet for at least a decade. My problems with it are the same as always.

      For many questions such as “Astrology accurately explains many things,” I’m guessing some sort of fallacy is to blame. The original author read that, say, right-wing authoritarians or left-wing libertarians (or whoever) are more likely to believe X vs Y, and wrongly assumed this statistically meant someone who believes X instead of why is thus more likely to be a left-wing authoritarians instead of a right-wing libertarian (or whatever).

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  3. My score is similar to yours, but more right, more authoritarian. Still a right-libertarian, though.

    Note how none of the world leaders are in the lower right quadrant? Does that say something about our leaders, or about the test?

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  6. Just to join the fun: (3.75, -1.85).
    Not surprised on the first, a bit on the second. Really, one of my main disagreements with the opinion here is that government is almost never a force for good. 🙂
    Anyway, not too far from the truth either. And I’d be surprised if any of the (semi)regulars here scores high on authoritarianism or heavily to either the left or right.

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  7. Economic, social: (-2.62, -4.46). Pretty much as I predicted. I used to lean a lot more heavily towards no government interference with the economy, but now I’m moving away from that in some ways, mostly in theory (in practice I don’t trust this society to tolerate a government that won’t pander to it).

    I agree that many of these questions are rather odd, but I was able to interpret each of them in a way that allowed me to find some sort of answer. I don’t really put much stock in this sort of test, because I still assert that with the current bunch of humans we’ve got running this planet, no point on this graph will save us. Luckily, the graph doesn’t tell all. We need to change the game and introduce some nuance into the human mental skillset. Humans on this planet are mostly caught up in addressing all problems with more money, or more rules, or sometimes both. They’re ignorant of at least six other ways to address problems, or think that only born savants can use them, and the effects on popular culture are noticeable. It’s time to set the record straight.

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      • Well, I identify eight major problem-solving mindsets. In my post I referred to A) organization, which is the skill of tracking details and efficient allocation of resources (“more money”), and B) semantics, which is the skill of applying labels and rules to situations in order to rapidly arrive at useful answers (“more rules”). These mindsets are not inherently bad, and in fact are very helpful when used properly, but when they are used in situations better suited to other mindsets then those situations tend to deteriorate.

        The other six mindsets I identify are as follows:

        Operation, which is the skill of developing intuition and focus through practice, so that one may perform techniques with grace and reliability

        Analysis, which is the skill of seeing patterns and identifying both causal connections and inconsistencies

        Synthesis, which is the skill of seeing possibilities and combining experiences into new ideas, essentially imagination

        Empathy, which is the skill of being aware of and understanding the impressions that experiences make on different people, and of shaping an experience to influence people’s feelings, including one’s own

        Tactics, which is the skill of applying one’s inventory or environment in a clever way to get unexpected use out of it

        Strategy, which is the skill of fortifying one’s efforts with foresight, forming long-term policies to shift the odds in one’s favor and avoid mistakes or vulnerability.

        Although those are the basic eight, I’ve got many other subtypes, some more powerful types formed from combining opposites, and a great deal of elaboration on each mindset, how it sees the world, and how it can manifest for good or ill. I’ve been working on this project for years now because I think that it can help me change the world. This model has already helped me improve all of my own skills regarding both academia and leadership. And of course, being a major geek, I named and themed all the mindsets after classical elements because of a strong metaphorical resemblance. I’m hoping the model will catch on, with or without the element theme.

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      • This article does indeed interest me, as a big picture system analyst and as someone who wants to change the world. I’m trying to hit the “paradigm” and “power to transcend paradigms” points in this world as hard as possible. I don’t think the system will work without people being able to create and compare paradigms, through the combination of synthesis and analysis. It’s good to know that people are thinking about how to bring about fundamental changes to the big picture. Thanks for linking me to it!

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  8. Economic Left/Right: -3.88
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.21

    A little less libertarian than Jack, but significantly to the Left. Kinda odd, given that I generally consider myself at least slightly conservative. I agree the scale must be whacked, the assessments of contemporary leaders biased, or both.

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  9. Yes, I’ve seen this one as well. This is even worse than the 1st one.

    Very poorly worded statements…half of which aren’t even ideological.

    But of course, I forget it is Europe, their moon-man system of politics is nothing like ours, when they say Right and Left Wing it isn’t exactly analogous to our Right and Left Wing.

    This quiz has me as half a notch on the Libertarian side and about 2 notches to the Right. Please, a fence sitting pansy moderate I am not. And if a European measuring system places an Originalist-Constitutionalist-Leaning-Right-Libertarian-without-Nutso-Foreign-Policy-Views in the middle, then either the test is grossly wrong, or I have grossly mischaracterized European politics. And I assure you, I haven’t grossly mischaracterized that quagmire.

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  11. In their own explanation, they place “Green” Parties in the Libertarian half of the scale…

    For crying out loud, the naivete necessary to place a political movement that would require massive amounts of government intrusion on the economy CANNOT come close to being called “Libertarian”.

    This quiz’s analysis is a joke.

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          • Another problem with these quizzes, is some questions cover very broad topics – “Government should regulate some aspects of the economy for the common good” – whereas some questions are extremely specific – “Government should ban abortions except when the mother is threatened”. But the answers only change you one notch either way…

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            • To clarify, the same quiz asks about 5-7 separate 1st Amendment speech questions, but only one 2nd Amendment question, and 2 or 3 Free Market questions…

              This doesn’t make sense to me.

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            • To suggest an improvement, quizzes shouldn’t ask “how much you care about this topic”, they should ask, “even though you gave your personal opinion, how much do you think government SHOULD act on this topic”…

              Where someone can answer, “I think smoking is bad” But “I don’t think it is government’s business to stop it”.

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    • Ugh, too many false dichotomies and choices for which I could say yes to both or no to either. And yet, there it is, diagnosing me as a “Hard-Pressed Skeptic”, deeply financially-stressed and distrustful of government, which isn’t exactly wrong. Coincidence? Maybe.

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    • Same complaint as everyone else on the false dichotomies. The “comes closest” standard helps but doesn’t really fix it. I also dislike the idea of a one dimensional scale. Nonetheless, business conservative. I think young outsider would have been a better fit overall, and suspect I was one or two questions away from being classified that way.

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  13. Haven’t read it yet, but I believe these things are often designed to steer people towards a desired mindset, or do so because experimenter bias affects the wording and choice of questions.

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    • Yep. I agree with this statement.

      Here’s my political test:

      Agree/Disagree:

      You like Puppies
      You don’t like people who knock over old ladies
      People should be polite

      If you agreed with those three statements you belong to my political party. Vote for me.

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    • This is why I wonder if isidewith is a conservative site…?

      Yours looks very similar to mine except Constitution was 97, libertarian was 77, and democrats were ##… never mind we just won’t go there.

      (They were 10%). That’s 5% too much.

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  20. This one really shows it’s Libertarian origins, yet manages to toss in a wide variety of nuanced answers on all sides of the political spectrum:

    http://www.quiz2d.com/quiz/

    It does unfortunately avoid any abstract or philosophical questions and sticks almost entirely to current affair hot button issues – so much less theory and more practical application to contemporary elections & parties.

    Reply

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