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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   9651 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I'm curious why you ask "I'd like a partner who is..." and two of the options are "educated" and "uneducated". Surely the response to one of these on a Likert scale is just the inverse of the response to the other?

Not necessarily. Just as one might be turned on by both women and men, so might one find both "educated" and "uneducated" to be appealing qualities.

To me, that sounds more like a person's educational attainment is irrelevant to how attractive you find them.

Absent more context, I'd consider uneducated to mean dropped out prior to graduating high school and educated to mean has a college degree. I could definitely see there being room for someone to not want someone uneducated but being indifferent about educated.

I'd consider uneducated to be highschool, normal to be bachelors, educated to mean an advanced degree

Some reasons I can think of

  • check how consistent respondents are
  • capture people who are attracted to both extremes
  • capture people who are neutral towards one but attracted towards the other

You'd think! However, checking the results prematurely, they clearly are not. Psychology is messy, and the way people answer questions is often tapping into more than merely linear effects. Just consider the kind of person who says "Educated? No! I don't want one of those educated women! But I don't want a dummy either!" Or equally, "Ooh, scientists are hot! Also yeah I love trailer park bimbos... and women with chopsticks in their hair... Hey why is there no chopsticks option?"

Anyway thank you for taking the survey, the Motte is totally rad.

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