AnnaSalamon comments on Ask LW: What questions to test in our rationality questionnaire? - Less Wrong

15 Post author: AnnaSalamon 29 March 2009 12:03PM

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Comment author: AnnaSalamon 29 March 2009 07:05:42PM *  2 points [-]

I'm not sure how "how good-looking are you" is useful with fulfilling the stated goals of section E.

If good looks aren't strongly correlated with the answers to other questions, we can use the responses of groups of test-takers to "how good-looking are you?" to see whether that group, in aggregate, tends to be positively self-deceived. It isn't definitive, but if e.g. the group of respondants whose questionnaires are low in a particular factor also have the property that 50% of them regard themselves as being in the best-looking 10% of the population, while for the group whose questionnaires are high in that factor, only 10% regard themselves as being in the best-looking 10%... that would be evidence (though not definitive evidence) that the factor correlates with accurate self-assessment.

Comment author: conchis 31 March 2009 12:46:19PM 1 point [-]

Not sure whether this is feasible, but could you use the results of this sort of overoptimism calibration to adjust other subjective performance measures for bias? Maybe if you had more of these sorts of question in different domains, and overoptimism were strongly correlated across them all?