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pjeby comments on Exploiting the Typical Mind Fallacy for more accurate questioning? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Real-life employment personality questionnaires are more subtle than this. They might ask things like, "Nobody could resist buying a stolen item they wanted if the price was low enough: Agree/DIsagree", or "Wanting to steal something is a natural human reaction if a person is treated unfairly: Agree/Disagree".
That is, they test for thieves' typical rationalizations, rather than asking straight-up factual questions. Xachariah's example question isn't a good use of typical-mind fallacy, because it doesn't ask a purely theory-of-mind question.
Real personality tests don't ask how likely someone is to steal, they ask (in effect), how justified they think someone else would be in stealing. The more things you consider justifiable reasons for stealing, the greater the odds you'll personally find one. ;-)
In any event, they do exploit the typical mind fallacy, they just do so directly, by asking about what people think other people think, from the perspective of a potential thief. If a person is honest, then they must disagree that "nobody could resist", because they are a strong example of somebody who could, whereas the thief thinks that everyone else is just like them, and has motivated-cognition reasons for wanting to agree.
Good point. More intricate questions like this, with 'nobody could resist' wording, are also much more fair. The question as of what the person believes is the natural human state are more dubious.
Can you clarify how "Wanting to steal something is a natural human reaction if a person is treated unfairly" is not a factual question? I mean, I suppose I can see quibbling over what "natural" means here, but I would likely unpack it as meaning, roughly, that the reaction is common among humans in typical scenarios involving typical unfairness. And, well, either wanting to steal something is a common reaction to such a scenario, or it isn't... just like stealing is (or isn't).
It seems all the same concerns arise about whether I should give the answer I consider most likely to be true, or the answer I consider most normative, or something else.