[RD] Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations test

[Mouthwash]

There are plenty of reliable claims that evo psych can make; it's just that none of them are very specific.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Looks like I'm a left-liberal too. Based on all of the scores so far, I'm thinking there is a little bias in this test.

I'm more impressed with it than I expected. Yes, it biases towards 'left-liberal' as a final one word summary, but the value isn't in the one word summary. I think comparison of the various posted results from the "known sample" indicates a fair degree of accuracy. Look at the spectrum of scores for valuing authority, ranging from a general cluster we mostly fall in with @cardgame and @MagisterCultuum on the low edge to the high outliers that are exactly the people I would have expected. Based on years of interaction the results seem to match expectations.

Same for the care value. Yes, the obvious bias of the questions shows in that it makes scoring high on care as compared to authority almost automatic, but again the people I'd have guessed would score the highest seem to be clustered at the top while the people who value it less are exactly the people I'd have predicted.

It's a small sample size, obviously, but I think it has merit.

 

[metalhead]

Cannot perceive. I really recommend the book! The person who views punishment as morally important literally has a sensory percept that you don't.

I think about this phenomenon a lot, albeit in a different context. I think a lot of the difficulty we have in answering big questions like about crime is that people tend to assume that everyone shares their individual perceptions.

I will never know the feeling of inner satisfaction that such a person derives from knowing a due punishment has been meted out. I also don't know how pervasive that reaction is - although I do know that "retribution" is still taught in law school as a valid theory for why the State should be in the punishment business, so us liberal academics haven't chucked it out just yet.

The reason I think about this is because I think when a perception that brings satisfaction is widespread enough among a population, then it makes sense that policy reflect that. The context I've been encountering this in recently is in terms of work. Liberal elites touting things like UBI tend to look down on the idea that work is virtuous, or think that it is a weakness for people to perceive that fulfillment or satisfaction needs to come from work.

But that doesn't make much sense to me. We shouldn't overlook things which broadly bring people satisfaction, even feelings of security. I think a lot of times, issue discussions get shouty because one side doesn't understand that the other side is getting warm and fuzzies from the opposite kinds of things.

 

[El_Machinae]

You don't think the existence of a strong moral sense might imply it has some use, even one you haven't thought of?

I'm open to the discussion, but my first guess is that the use is that punishment provides a deterrence effect.

As I said, I tend to swing 'liberal' on these types of tests. I am also color-blind, so I am used to living in a world where people perceive differences that I cannot. And where I see similarities that they cannot.

But the person who values justice will also not see the damage done by their thirst for it, or (at least) they will downplay the value of the damage done, because they merely see it as an opportunity cost.

 

[innonimatu]

I only have to look at those "left-liberal", "conservative" and "libertarian" bars to discard whatever theory is behind it. Linnaeus didn't knew the evils he was unleashing upon the world when he got taxonomy fashionable in science... three centuries of forcing reality to conform to theory, and not any aspect of life is supposed to escape it!

Does this make me an arch-conservative or an anarchist?

 

[Synobun]

I only have to look at those "left-liberal", "conservative" and "libertarian" bars to discard whatever theory is behind it. Linnaeus didn't knew the evils he was unleashing upon the world when he got taxonomy fashionable in science... three centuries of forcing reality to conform to theory, and not any aspect of life is supposed to escape it!

Does this make me an arch-conservative or an anarchist?

Probably a freshman in college.

 

[innonimatu]

Probably a freshman in college.

Feeling better are you?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Does this make me an arch-conservative or an anarchist?

I suspect it would mean you would score high on Purity.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

• Your scores:

• Care 94%

• Loyalty 36%

• Fairness 86%

• Authority 31%

• Purity 47%

• Liberty 44%

Your strongest moral foundation is Care.

Your morality is closest to that of a Left-Liberal.

 

[metatron]

Look at the spectrum of scores for valuing authority, ranging from a general cluster we mostly fall in with @cardgame and @MagisterCultuum on the low edge to the high outliers that are exactly the people I would have expected.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, i feel the same way: Authority scores as expected. Purity scores too.

It's a small sample size, obviously, but I think it has merit.

I could have handed basically all the people in the above cluster roughly their result.
And i could have guessed many of them would make constipated faces about it.
I could not have guessed well at all the actual scores of the people outside that cluster, but i could have guessed the direction of deviation.
And i suppose you could have too.

There's a word for that: Reliability.
What is obviously contested here the validity of the test.

Regarding the validity i think some here are reading the results not carefully enough (pun intended):
Look at @red_elk scores (page #1) and behold how the test files them as conservative.
The test knows that it gives out higher numbers for the first two categories and lower ones for authority and purity.
That's priced in.
What seems like a gotcha here to some, the test already knows about itself.
And it is telling us that, too.
Just look at the graphs for the three groups the test provides for comparison.

Yes, the obvious bias of the questions shows in that it makes scoring high on care as compared to authority almost automatic, but again the people I'd have guessed would score the highest seem to be clustered at the top while the people who value it less are exactly the people I'd have predicted.

It's a small sample size, obviously, but I think it has merit.

I have a pretty good idea where i picked up that 64% Care. And i bet Tristan knows were he got those fifty percent, too.
I also have very particular ideas as to where i didn't get (and wouldn't want to get) a higher one.

Half the population in the thread - or more - is party to that cluster with high Care and high Fairness scores, low liberty scores, even lower than the already low "liberal" default, and surprisingly high Purity (and at times Authority).
And it is these users that keep complaining about the test without any concrete demonstration as to what's the fault.

(Just to make clear what the difference is: I have written a short apology/complaint about my result. Largely to the effect that i'd quite enjoy the state liquidating Rand Paul's ridiculous mansion (and that of his streetfighter neighbor too) and use the money to help poor people, you know, with welfare, commie healthcare and schools that deserve to be called schools etc.
But the test didn't let me push that button.
I still feel that's a legitimate criticism. At the same time i understand that the above is a concrete policy proposal, not a value, and an oddly specific policy proposal at that.)​

Do you know how the test with its supposed bias has you guys in that cluster all pegged in that corner?
There was talk that some questions just had to be answered a certain way by any "normal" person.
Yet @Tristan_C , @Mouthwash , @Kaitzilla and i, veering off in different directions, must have managed not to do so.
One could say because we are so highly odd persons. But i take it you feel the test itself is at fault.

The point is: Where in the actual test do you think that happened - in such a way that you blame the question for it?

If you and the others are correct, if the test has good reliability - it measures what it measures quite well - yet it has poor validity - it doesn't measure what it is supposed to measure...
...then, what does it measure?

Slightly smug that I have more fairness and liberty than the described left-liberal.

Considering the balance of results so far, you arguably may have earned that.

I am liberal because the liberty of individuals is of critical importance to me. This test doesn't catch that. What this test catches is the idea of 'I'm libertarian because rules that I don't like don't apply to me'. But, on the other hand, conservatism is about you do what you are told, or you do what is expected of you. And you don't rock the boat.

Well, i ask you the same thing:
What questions do you feel, did that?
I have the 89% - highest score so far. That's a lot.
So you can pick three or four questions that you found most outrageous in the way that you describe.
Then we know what we are talking about.

There's some chance that you will hit something i personally didn't answer that way, seeing how there's still 11% worth of space. But, well, the odds are pretty clear.

@Synsensa
Same goes for you. You are still wellcome to tell me about this flouting of the social contract.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Uh-huh.

Yeah, i feel the same way: Authority scores as expected. Purity scores too.

I could have handed basically all the people in the above cluster roughly their result.
And i could have guessed many of them would make constipated faces about it.
I could not have guessed well at all the actual scores of the people outside that cluster, but i could have guessed the direction of deviation.
And i suppose you could have too.

There's a word for that: Reliability.
What is obviously contested here the validity of the test.

Regarding the validity i think some here are reading the results not carefully enough (pun intended):
Look at @red_elk scores (page #1) and behold how the test files them as conservative.
The test knows that it gives out higher numbers for the first two categories and lower ones for authority and purity.
That's priced in.
What seems like a gotcha here to some, the test already knows about itself.
And it is telling us that, too.
Just look at the graphs for the three groups the test provides for comparison.

I have a pretty good idea where i picked up that 64% Care. And i bet Tristan knows were he got those fifty percent, too.
I also have very particular ideas as to where i didn't get (and wouldn't want to get) a higher one.

Half the population in the thread - or more - is party to that cluster with high Care and high Fairness scores, low liberty scores, even lower than the already low "liberal" default, and surprisingly high Purity (and at times Authority).
And it is these users that keep complaining about the test without any concrete demonstration as to what's the fault.

(Just to make clear what the difference is: I have written a short apology/complaint about my result. Largely to the effect that i'd quite enjoy the state liquidating Rand Paul's ridiculous mansion (and that of his streetfighter neighbor too) and use the money to help poor people, you know, with welfare, commie healthcare and schools that deserve to be called schools etc.
But the test didn't let me push that button.
I still feel that's a legitimate criticism. At the same time i understand that the above is a concrete policy proposal, not a value, and an oddly specific policy proposal at that.)​

Do you know how the test with its supposed bias has you guys in that cluster all pegged in that corner?
There was talk that some questions just had to be answered a certain way by any "normal" person.
Yet @Tristan_C , @Mouthwash , @Kaitzilla and i, veering off in different directions, must have managed not to do so.
One could say because we are so highly odd persons. But i take it you feel the test itself is at fault.

The point is: Where in the actual test do you think that happened - in such a way that you blame the question for it?

If you and the others are correct, if the test has good reliability - it measures what it measures quite well - yet it has poor validity - it doesn't measure what it is supposed to measure...
...then, what does it measure?

Considering the balance of results so far, you arguably may have earned that.

Well, i ask you the same thing:
What questions do you feel, did that?
I have the 89% - highest score so far. That's a lot.
So you can pick three or four questions that you found most outrageous in the way that you describe.
Then we know what we are talking about.

There's some chance that you will hit something i personally didn't answer that way, seeing how there's still 11% worth of space. But, well, the odds are pretty clear.

@Synsensa
Same goes for you. You are still wellcome to tell me about this flouting of the social contract.

Weird flex but ok.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Weird flex but ok.

Did it get less weird if you read the whole thing? I kinda got the he was somehow offended at what seemed a fairly simple observation and gave up trying to parse out the specifics.

 

[metatron]

Weird flex but ok.

Well, you are in it, too.
You got a caring score higher than the liberal and a fairness score higher than the liberal.
We can agree how that intuitively makes sense and goes together:
You're just very liberal. Fine.
Like the others in said cluster you have a liberty score way lower than the liberal default, which is already low.
So the claim that this is typical for a very liberal person makes sense. The others are claiming that. And the test agrees in that it has higher values for the other two goups.
Now, the other guys appear to hold the view that this is not odd since that's inherently liberal.
I hold the view that that is quite odd since it is inherently illiberal.
I'd cite Cut's channeling of the supposed Libertarian:
"I'm libertarian because rules that I don't like don't apply to me."
And then i'd remind you that plenty of things are rules before they are not and that it kind of used to be conservatives' job to insit on them.
Anyway: We disagree. That can be debated.

However: Where do you think you all get these high purity scores? The test has that as a conservative thing, obviously. Yet many of you in that cluster manage purity scores as high as the conservative one. This doesn't appear necessary by any way of test design: @The_J has sky-high care and fairness without the purity.
So where do you all get that? What is that purity?

Did it get less weird if you read the whole thing? I kinda got the he was somehow offended at what seemed a fairly simple observation and gave up trying to parse out the specifics.

*sigh*
Ok, let's try the short version:
You appear to give the test some credit. Like, knowing the drift of the thing you find our results somewhat predictable in retrospect and credible at least in relation to each other? But you are unsatisfied with how the test casts that into numbers and terms.
So the test reliably measures... something, just not what it claims to measure?
Then what does it actually measure?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Apologies for Godwin'ing an RD thread, but I was curious how an Obergruppenführer might score on the quiz.
So I put on my Glenn Beck Nuremberg hat and gave it another go.

Spoiler :

Simulated Jackbooted Thug


Huh, there is more liberty there than I expected.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

*sigh*
Ok, let's try the short version:
You appear to give the test some credit. Like, knowing the drift of the thing you find our results somewhat predictable in retrospect and credible at least in relation to each other? But you are unsatisfied with how the test casts that into numbers and terms.
So the test reliably measures... something, just not what it claims to measure?
Then what does it actually measure?

I was unsatisfied with what now? If you are going to be in charge of telling me what I think you are going to have to be far more specific.

As to what I actually think...there is some usefulness in the method of the test, but if you are looking for it to reliably crank out a one or two word word descriptive phrase as a boiled down 'result' and have it be meaningful you are missing the utility. It does seem to reliably score the 'authority' value higher for people who have demonstrably taken positions one would expect from someone who values authority higher, while providing a baseline value that most of us scored pretty close to; which would be expected since I'd say that mostly patrons of this board do place a similar measure on the value of authority.

You seem to have gone deep into the defensiveness over this because it seems you didn't like being pointed out as an outlier in the scoring, despite it being pretty obvious that in regards to how you value authority you are clearly an outlier from the "homogenized echo chamber" that you accuse the rest of us of forming on a fairly regular basis. I did not mean for 'outlier' to be taken as insulting, it's just a numerical representation of an observable condition. In that it appears the methodology is reliable, as it does accurately reflect the condition. In a finer scaling I'd say that recognizing that I place more on the authority value than @cardgame is also accurate. That doesn't make me, or Cardgame, 'better,' it's just a measure of emphasis and based on the disagreements we have had it seems accurate to me...I would say that I do tilt more towards caring and less towards fairness, relatively speaking.

I think it probably is also useful as an indicator of caring vs fairness, which is a recurring dilemma for the typical 'left liberal' crowd. While we may all look alike in our echo chamber from the perspective of the outlier, I think the measure C-F might be a reliable indicator. Because of the skewing it seems this will always be a positive number for those who are typically identified as "on the left," but it doesn't surprise me that the people who showed a wider divergence measured that way and vice versa. And again, I'm not implying that valuing caring far more (as measured by this device) is somehow superior (or inferior) to valuing them more closely to the same (AMBTD).

Get it?

 

[metatron]

I was unsatisfied with what now? If you are going to be in charge of telling me what I think you are going to have to be far more specific.

Well Cut and Syns have pretty explicitly stated that the less "left-liberal" values are basically not what the labels say but rather, well, roughly some broad character flaws, i suppose.
While you didn't subscribe to that exactly i still got the impression that you credit the test with predictive merit but feel it is off in what traits are actually being tracked.
I may have gotten the wrong impression, sure.

I did not mean for 'outlier' to be taken as insulting, it's just a numerical representation of an observable condition.

Sure. And i didn't.
If anything i'm annoyed by the above substitution of terms by our friends.
I mean i tore a bit into the category of fairness in my first post. But in comparison i feel it was not such a lazy criticism, besides one could own that criticism and still recover: Butting into people's lifes can be justified - you know something about teaching people to live healthier and whatnot. Not that i would necessarily agree but it's certainly more defensible than what our dear friends wrote about the liberty category, which in this thread is somewhat plausible for me to watch with a certain interest, to say the least.

In that it appears the methodology is reliable, as it does accurately reflect the condition. In a finer scaling I'd say that recognizing that I place more on the authority value than @cardgame is also accurate. That doesn't make me, or Cardgame, 'better,' it's just a measure of emphasis and based on the disagreements we have had it seems accurate to me...I would say that I do tilt more towards caring and less towards fairness, relatively speaking.

I'm confused. If my eyes are not too bad CG has a higher authority score than you by like 2% or whatever, which hardly matters one way or the other.

I think it probably is also useful as an indicator of caring vs fairness, which is a recurring dilemma for the typical 'left liberal' crowd.

Yes, i can see how this makes sense.
And i have to own it too, obviously, seeing how i have implicitly made my socialism very much about the absence of hurt here (i.e. caring), rather than fairness.

I'd say that mostly patrons of this board do place a similar measure on the value of authority.

Well, we could debate what is "similar", but i concede that the authority scores vary less than the liberty scores for example.

But still, i have to ask you too: What do you make of the disgust scores and those correlating with the care and fairness here.
Again, they don't have to. *pointsatJ*
Like, i'm sorry if i annoy you, but i'm really amazed by.
Like, that's sooo a conservative thing.
Purity, disgust is what kept conservatives from acting non-idiotically towards gay people; it's elementary in xenophobia etc.

We can probably skip the step regarding how i'd explain that.
How would you explain it, though?

 

[Synobun]

Well Cut and Syns appear to feel that the test measured something reliably, they just don't agree with the labels. I mean, they have pretty explicitly state that the less liberal values, including the one i scored so high at actually measure, well... roughly a bad person.

Hey now, I didn't assign any connotation to collectivism and social contract flouting.

In reality though, I'm not sure that me noting a weakness of the test means I think it measures reliably. I think it's designed to lean heavily towards defining its respondents as liberal.

 

[cardgame]

Hey now, I didn't assign any connotation to collectivism and social contract flouting.

In reality though, I'm not sure that me noting a weakness of the test means I think it measures reliably. I think it's designed to lean heavily towards defining its respondents as liberal.

Well as the saying goes, reality has a well known liberal bias.

 

[metatron]

Hey now, I didn't assign any connotation to collectivism and social contract flouting.

I maintain my objection even in absence of value judgements:
Usually the Libertarianism that you totally didn't mean to dis even though it sounded like it *winkwink* usually comes with, you know this disdain for taxes and affinity for automatic weaponry (i.e. the reverse of my preference).
Yet neither featured in the test.
And that's sort of elementary social-contract-flouting-wise, this whole obsession with taxes.

In reality though, I'm not sure that me noting a weakness of the test means I think it measures reliably. I think it's designed to lean heavily towards defining its respondents as liberal.

Oh, i understood you to imply the test would work...
...you know, as a detection device of the worldviews you outlined, totes without value judgements.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But still, i have to ask you too: What do you make of the disgust scores and those correlating with the care and fairness here.
Again, they don't have to. *pointsatJ*
Like, i'm sorry if i annoy you, but i'm really amazed by.
Like, that's sooo a conservative thing.
Purity, disgust is what kept conservatives from acting non-idiotically towards gay people; it's elementary in xenophobia etc.

We can probably skip the step regarding how i'd explain that.
How would you explain it, though?

I can't, because I'm completely lost. Disgust scores? I don't know what those are...