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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   9664 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I'm looking forward to seeing the results and the analysis!

For what it's worth, on page one I was a little irritated with your two-word pairings several times. I'm often one, but not the other - so if asked on their own, I would have given different answers. Examples are:

  • "Active, Talkative"
  • "Down-to-Earth, Unimaginative"
  • "Amoral, Carefree"

Agreed. I decided not to fill it out on this basis.

People sometimes do.

You're not the only one; I wouldn't ask these questions if they didn't work so very, very well. Therefore you must choose: Are you down to earth? Or imaginative? Moral? Or carefree? Active? Or silent? Make your choice! (Or else click the "neutral / ambivalent" option. Like, ambivalence is a thing.)

And thank you also for taking the survey. Every drop of water raises the ocean, especially when the ocean is just, like, 400 drops.

Seconded, many of these adjective pairs aren't really synonymous. Many people are active (in the sense of being physically fit) but not talkative, and vice versa. "Carefree" to me suggests "lacking in neuroticism/anxiety", not lacking in moral principles.

Why should they be synonymous? The more synonymous the word pairs are, the less you need two words. The point of having an additional word is to alter the way people answer.

Normally when a personality questionnaire asks you to rate how accurately an adjective describes you, they either use a single adjective (neurotic) or a series of closely related adjectives (anxious, worrisome, moody). This is the first time I recall seeing a questionnaire asking me how much a group of (to my eyes) completely independent adjectives describes me.

Yeah, and even if you go by context, it doesn't work. I'm active in conversation - but not talkative. I prefer to ask questions, and have other people do the talking. This often means I steer the conversation and keep it going, but hearing what I say isn't that interesting to me.

yeah, same.

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