There are questions asking us to compare ourselves with populations of other people about whom we are likely to have only limited and unreliable knowledge, to which the answers “about the same, so far as I know” and “of course I have no idea, you silly survey-author” are not available. I think this is unfortunate.
Thanks for noting the difficulty. I’m not sure how to improve it, though. I want to know comparisons to people with “basically your starting-advantages” (e.g., not being born in rural Africa), but… when I tried to phrase things in that vicinity it became much more dependent on the survey respondant’s interpretation (e.g., on whether they included IQ, or compared themselves to others with their neurological diagnosis).
Well, you could at least give “about the same” and “no idea” as options.
In general, I worry that the questionnaire is going to have trouble disentangling variations in people’s actual success and in their descriptions of their success. Of course this is very difficult to avoid.
There are questions asking us to compare ourselves with populations of other people about whom we are likely to have only limited and unreliable knowledge, to which the answers “about the same, so far as I know” and “of course I have no idea, you silly survey-author” are not available. I think this is unfortunate.
Thanks for noting the difficulty. I’m not sure how to improve it, though. I want to know comparisons to people with “basically your starting-advantages” (e.g., not being born in rural Africa), but… when I tried to phrase things in that vicinity it became much more dependent on the survey respondant’s interpretation (e.g., on whether they included IQ, or compared themselves to others with their neurological diagnosis).
Any suggestions?
Well, you could at least give “about the same” and “no idea” as options.
In general, I worry that the questionnaire is going to have trouble disentangling variations in people’s actual success and in their descriptions of their success. Of course this is very difficult to avoid.
I didn’t think of the rural Africans. I’d have shot more towards the blissful end if I had.