Psychoticness
Feb. 8th, 2007 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietThis week in one of my college seminars, we took the short form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. This measures Psychoticism, Extraversion, & Neuroticism (& includes a 'lie scale' which is supposed to indicate if people are filling the questionnaire in reasonably truthfully).
I found the questions for the P scale interesting. Psychoticism as measured here is occasionally referred to as 'tough-mindedness'; this description suggests that people with high scores "are inclined toward being cruel, inhumane, socially indifferent, hostile, aggressive, not considerate of danger, insular, glacial and intolerant. They show a propensity towards making trouble for others, belittling, acting disruptively, and are lacking in empathy." There's some discussion of it (and a picture!) in the Wikipedia page on trait theory.
So, the questions that identify this in the short form test (in brackets is Y or N to indicate whether a Yes or No answer gets you a P point):
1. Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects? (Y)
2. Do you prefer to go your own way rather than act by the rules? (Y)
3. Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with? (Y)
4. Do you enjoy cooperating with others? (N)
5. Do you think people spend too much time safeguarding their future with savings and insurance? (Y)
6. Is it better to follow society's rules than go your own way? (N)
7. Would you like other people to be afraid of you? (Y)
8. Do you try not to be rude to people? (N)
9. Does it worry you if you know there are mistakes in your work? (N)
10. Do you take much notice of what people think? (N)
11. Would being in debt worry you? (N)
That's 11 questions (I think I got all of them); the mean & standard deviation (for the female 21-30 norm group from the handbook, because that's all I wrote down) are 2.56 & 1.95. Now, is it just me, or does that seem pretty low, looking at that list?
(Disclaimer: I got 5, which is well into the 2nd SD, so I may be taking this personally ;-) ).
I did notice that at least two of the questions are dodgy in terms of wording:
* Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects?
* Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with?
Both of those are really 2 questions (strange != dangerous, and one could answer separately for both conditions; similarly with the marriage question).
I'm also wondering how old the norms are. The latest revision of the scale was apparently in the 1980s, which is more long enough for some social changes (attitudes to debt in particular have I think changed a lot; also possibly marriage & drugs).
Fundamentally, that set of questions don't entirely look to be getting at what they claim to be getting at. What they seem to be aiming for is partly attitudes to social norms (which in some cases might indicate the factors claimed; but certainly not reliably so), and partly attitudes to others (which is possibly a bit more linked - I can see Q7 in that light.).
Hm. I think there is some confusion between the test-taker's attitude to "society as a whole" and their attitude to "other people". I don't think these two are as close as the questions seem to indicate (assuming that the description of the "psychotic type" is indeed supposed to be what the questions are aiming at); although I accept that they're not orthogonal. Certainly, indifference to "social norms" != social indifference. (depending on how you define "social norms" and in particular whether you are looking at society-at-large or sub-groupings).
Thoughts?
(It should be noted that this is the short form so may be a little less reliable; although is still considered reliable enough for use. It's not used as a clinical diagnostic tool, though; nor is the long form. It was designed really for research purposes rather than clinical purposes.)
I found the questions for the P scale interesting. Psychoticism as measured here is occasionally referred to as 'tough-mindedness'; this description suggests that people with high scores "are inclined toward being cruel, inhumane, socially indifferent, hostile, aggressive, not considerate of danger, insular, glacial and intolerant. They show a propensity towards making trouble for others, belittling, acting disruptively, and are lacking in empathy." There's some discussion of it (and a picture!) in the Wikipedia page on trait theory.
So, the questions that identify this in the short form test (in brackets is Y or N to indicate whether a Yes or No answer gets you a P point):
1. Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects? (Y)
2. Do you prefer to go your own way rather than act by the rules? (Y)
3. Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with? (Y)
4. Do you enjoy cooperating with others? (N)
5. Do you think people spend too much time safeguarding their future with savings and insurance? (Y)
6. Is it better to follow society's rules than go your own way? (N)
7. Would you like other people to be afraid of you? (Y)
8. Do you try not to be rude to people? (N)
9. Does it worry you if you know there are mistakes in your work? (N)
10. Do you take much notice of what people think? (N)
11. Would being in debt worry you? (N)
That's 11 questions (I think I got all of them); the mean & standard deviation (for the female 21-30 norm group from the handbook, because that's all I wrote down) are 2.56 & 1.95. Now, is it just me, or does that seem pretty low, looking at that list?
(Disclaimer: I got 5, which is well into the 2nd SD, so I may be taking this personally ;-) ).
I did notice that at least two of the questions are dodgy in terms of wording:
* Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects?
* Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with?
Both of those are really 2 questions (strange != dangerous, and one could answer separately for both conditions; similarly with the marriage question).
I'm also wondering how old the norms are. The latest revision of the scale was apparently in the 1980s, which is more long enough for some social changes (attitudes to debt in particular have I think changed a lot; also possibly marriage & drugs).
Fundamentally, that set of questions don't entirely look to be getting at what they claim to be getting at. What they seem to be aiming for is partly attitudes to social norms (which in some cases might indicate the factors claimed; but certainly not reliably so), and partly attitudes to others (which is possibly a bit more linked - I can see Q7 in that light.).
Hm. I think there is some confusion between the test-taker's attitude to "society as a whole" and their attitude to "other people". I don't think these two are as close as the questions seem to indicate (assuming that the description of the "psychotic type" is indeed supposed to be what the questions are aiming at); although I accept that they're not orthogonal. Certainly, indifference to "social norms" != social indifference. (depending on how you define "social norms" and in particular whether you are looking at society-at-large or sub-groupings).
Thoughts?
(It should be noted that this is the short form so may be a little less reliable; although is still considered reliable enough for use. It's not used as a clinical diagnostic tool, though; nor is the long form. It was designed really for research purposes rather than clinical purposes.)
