Clarity comments on Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: MrMind 09 November 2015 08:07AM

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Comment author: Clarity 15 November 2015 02:03:18AM 0 points [-]

Do you agree with this statement: 'my work/school is the most important part of my life' (it's a item used to measure conformity with masculinity, haha) and why?

I suspect it's a shitty, very ambiguous question but that's the way psychological questioners often are.

I'm trying to ascertain ways that double barreled questions might be interpreted. I don't really care about your specific answer, just how you come to either a ''agree'' or ''don't agree'' if your answers are going to be coded as one or the other.

Comment author: gjm 16 November 2015 01:21:22AM 0 points [-]

I bet most people answering this question do so not by any sort of reasoned consideration of how important work, family, sleep, video games, music-making, sport, etc., etc., etc., are to them, but by a quick System-1-ish consideration of how the question makes them feel. And I bet anyone using this question to measure "conformity with masculinity" or any other psychological characteristic are relying on that. This sort of thing is omnipresent in psychological questionnaires, which I guess is what you're getting at in your second paragraph.

So, anyway, the sort of things I would think about if I were trying to answer this question while taking it more seriously than I think its authors did:

  • What would hurt most to lose? (This is Tem42's approach.) By this criterion, work comes out quite important but other things -- e.g., my family -- clearly ahead.
    • But that may be misleading; e.g., one reason why losing my job would hurt less than losing my daughter is that I can probably get another job much more easily and quickly than another daughter. But that doesn't seem like it's the same thing as importance.
  • What gives me most satisfaction? By this criterion, work does OK -- I like my job pretty well -- but many other things do better.
    • That may also be misleading. If I really disliked my job but had no savings and a family to feed, work might be very high up on the list of important things while still coming below Nothing At All in satisfaction conferred.
  • What do I spend most time thinking about?
    • Could well be work. But does this mean that if my employer suddenly demanded double the working hours (and for some reason I couldn't refuse or quit or anything) it would become much more important to me? I'm not sure that's right.
  • What do I voluntarily put most effort into?
    • Could well be work. But it seems like we should be distinguishing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation -- a major reason for putting effort into work is simply that I get paid for my job and I like being paid, and that's not obviously the same thing as importance.
  • What do I think most valuable to the world?
    • I think this is a very reasonable sense of "importance" but probably too far removed from the questioner's intent.
Comment author: Tem42 15 November 2015 01:24:02PM 0 points [-]

If I were fired, this would be bad, but not too terrible. If a family member died this would be worse. I could come up with further examples, but there is no need to; I now have enough information to answer this question: don't agree.

Comment author: Clarity 15 November 2015 10:29:13PM 0 points [-]

Thanks! Just the kind of insight I'm looking for. I hope others will contribute.