From: tom@genie.slhs.udel.edu (tom)
Subject: Re: Media bias
Keywords: bias
Organization: The Lab Rats
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 21:43:52 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.014344.7537@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

}There doesn't seem to be enough granularity here, and I'm not
}convinced the questions are sufficiently varied to differentiate much.
}I took the quiz personally, then took it from the Republican,
}Democrat, and libertarian point of views.  Everything but libertarian
}wound up hitting right around the center.  That leaves me feeling like
}this was a quiz put together by libertarians.

yes, this quiz was quite obviously put together by libertarians, and
with just 5 questions in each catagory it is pretty simplistic. but keep
in mind that to be useful it must be this simple. if we had 100 questions 
instead of 10 it would be much less granular, but it would also take
half an hour to do it, instead of 3 minutes. 

i've given this quiz, and other variants of it, to around 10,000 people
so far, and i can assure you that it is not biased toward libertarian
results. somewhere near 25% of the people i've given it to fall in the
libertarian sector, this is only 5% greater than pure chance. my results
have been (in descending order): Liberal, Centrist, Libertarian, Auth-
oritarian, Conservative. your mileage may vary, i gave out most of my
quizzes on college campuses and at rock & folk concerts so i'm not at
all surprised by the tendency toward the left half of the chart. when i
did it at gun shows, i got lots of conservatives & libertarians. cops
are usually in the bottom half of the chart, most of the elected
officials that i've gotten to take the quiz were centrists.

i'm constantly amazed by the degree of accuracy a quiz this simple can
produce. i've also used 20 & 30 question versions of the quiz and none
of them seem to do any better than the 10 question quiz.

as an example of a quiz that IS biased toward libertarian scores, try
this one. (use the same chart as before)

Personal Freedom:

Whose decision should it be                My      Not     Gov't
whether or not you:                     Decision   Sure   Decides

-  Wear a Seatbelt or Helmet?             ____     ____     ____
-  Own a gun?                             ____     ____     ____
-  Become a soldier?                      ____     ____     ____
-  Help the needy?                        ____     ____     ____
-  Pay for sex?                           ____     ____     ____
-  Have a baby?                           ____     ____     ____
-  Smoke dope?                            ____     ____     ____
-  Send your child to school?             ____     ____     ____
-  Swim nude?                             ____     ____     ____
-  Buy a pornographic book or video?      ____     ____     ____

count check-marks and multiply            x 10     x 5      x 0
                                                            ____
    Personal Score                        ____  +  ____  = |____|


Economic Freedom:

Whose decision should it be                My      Not     Gov't
whether or not you:                     Decision   Sure   Decides

-  Work for $2.00 an hour?                ____     ____     ____
-  Buy a Japanese car?                    ____     ____     ____
-  Play cards for money?                  ____     ____     ____
-  Hire an unlicensed contractor?         ____     ____     ____
-  Compete with the Post Office?          ____     ____     ____
-  Hire a minority worker?                ____     ____     ____
-  Invest in a risky business?            ____     ____     ____
-  Give to a needy corporation?           ____     ____     ____
-  Contribute to the defense
   of a foreign country?                  ____     ____     ____
-  Pay Taxes?                             ____     ____     ____

count check-marks and multiply            x 10     x 5      x 0
                                                            ____
    Economic Score                        ____  +  ____  = |____|


-- 
tom@udel.edu                                        ...!{gateway}!udel!tom
tom@genie.slhs.udel.edu           UDel: School of Life and Health Sciences

"Themes were useless; Destiny was here, and the foot pedals were bleeding."
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh