Anecdote showing how such questions can be highly misleading:
I know someone who has bipolar disorder. He said that online questionnaires or simple diagnostic statements like the one quoted above are often misinterpreted, that it’s the severity that matters most, and many people are not able to judge that properly.
He explained that many people who answer a bipolar diagnostics question like, “Do you often feel happy and then sad a short time later?” might think to themselves, “Hmm, just yesterday I was fine and then I got kind of down...” and so would answer yes to the binary question. However, for someone with true bipolar, he gave the example that, “Last week I worked 20 hours every day and founded 2 nonprofit organizations. This week I haven’t been outside at all and I tried to kill myself. Again.”
This sort of analysis should be done by someone with experience; the gap between ‘normal’ and ‘severe’ may be hard to fathom.
I suspect that IQ tests have some non-obvious biases: they select for mild ADD—a series of little puzzles which take so little time that (if you like that sort of puzzle), you don’t have time to get distracted.
They don’t address the ability to take on large projects or to find new questions.
They select against people who feel a need to only think about things which are directly connected to their goals.
I don’t know; though I would suspect that they would over-report, and that people with very high AQ scores would under-report. Self-reports are a crude measuring instrument.
Any idea what share of the general population would report “Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction?
I guess it would be better to reword that question for the general population. Too many people would switch off when they saw the word “reciprocal.”
Anecdote showing how such questions can be highly misleading:
I know someone who has bipolar disorder. He said that online questionnaires or simple diagnostic statements like the one quoted above are often misinterpreted, that it’s the severity that matters most, and many people are not able to judge that properly.
He explained that many people who answer a bipolar diagnostics question like, “Do you often feel happy and then sad a short time later?” might think to themselves, “Hmm, just yesterday I was fine and then I got kind of down...” and so would answer yes to the binary question. However, for someone with true bipolar, he gave the example that, “Last week I worked 20 hours every day and founded 2 nonprofit organizations. This week I haven’t been outside at all and I tried to kill myself. Again.”
This sort of analysis should be done by someone with experience; the gap between ‘normal’ and ‘severe’ may be hard to fathom.
Another factor is that people who are willing to answer online questionnaires are almost certainly not randomly distributed.
Speaking of problems with multiple choice tests:
I suspect that IQ tests have some non-obvious biases: they select for mild ADD—a series of little puzzles which take so little time that (if you like that sort of puzzle), you don’t have time to get distracted.
They don’t address the ability to take on large projects or to find new questions.
They select against people who feel a need to only think about things which are directly connected to their goals.
I don’t know; though I would suspect that they would over-report, and that people with very high AQ scores would under-report. Self-reports are a crude measuring instrument.