An Exercise in Critical Thinking

[nightwind69]

You know, you see these "What Religion Are You" quizzes going around often on the journals. There are different ones with different levels of complexity and different levels of "seriousness." But...Frankly, they all drive me nuts. Why? Well, here's my case study, which I happened to find on zero_rhapsody's journal

Comments

[ironbite]

Because you're a masochist and you needs be spanked.

Therefore I've enlisted Prowl and Bluestreak to help. And by help I mean if they don't do it...I will sell them to Swindle at the lowest price I can get.

[ravenclaw_devi]

So why, whenever one of these things is posted in someone's journal, do I have this irrational need to take the darn thing to see what it says about me?

Boredom? Sillyness? The same reason I take online quizzes even though I know they can't be taken seriously? :p

Bugs me too...

[calibrata]

Ugh... anyone can write bad items, it seems. These folks should study the rationale behind the unfolding model -- if one writes a true-false item on a political topic, persons too far to the left or the right will answer the same as each other, for different reasons. And that's still one-dimensional, even. (Now, if one makes the mistake of doing multidimensional scaling on the results, one will get two dimensions, but they're artifactual.)

Some of those sound like they're trying to get at the "Openness to Experience"/"Intellectance" construct, from the "Big Five" primary personality factors. OE is somewhat related to religious and particularly political orientations, but tends to have questions like, "Do you try something new every day?" "Would you get a thrill from bungee jumping?" "Do you read a lot?" It's the most diffuse dimension in the Big Five, but it actually holds together better than you'd think questions like those would

[seryan]

I'd love to see you pick apart the religion quiz that determines your faith (or whatever) by asking who you voted for in the last US election. :P