I’ve taken a few different mental assessments and they all follow the same formula for the most part. One question will say “have you ever thought about cutting yourself” and then 14 questions later, “have you ever thought about harming yourself” and then some weird question right after like “do you like school?”
And it’s like 60 questions like this on the sheet it just seems so weird to me. Do people really not notice the pattern? Is it meant to be visible? Is there some psychology behind it?
In: 3
Great responses here, but there is also a meta level of them seeing how the test biases the respondent. Think of three questions in a row
1) Would you call yourself depressed?
2) You’re holding a floofy pink puppy with adorable like snookum eyes, what do you name her?
3) Are you sad today?
You would expect the answer to question 3 to be now biased by the pleasant thoughts evoked by question 2. If you only had question 3 you might be missing people who are in fact depressed, just under-reporting it. By have the same-ish question in multiple phrases and places in a survey you can get a better base-line and hopefully remove interactions like this.
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