[MyTorturedSoul]

this "quiz" is ********. It's supposed to be "scientific" but I guess we can throw that word around like candy these days, huh? I was able to match each question to each category while I was still taking the quiz. The average idiot with no self-awareness will believe things like this are magical and amazing, meanwhile I can read the minds of these ********ters just from reading the questions they are asking me, which is means this quiz is ********.

[KarenSue]

I understand your sentiments. I don't put much store in generalized "tests" of any kind. I have read that the DSM is non-scientific but puts itself out to be. I read that somewhere. Maybe here? IDK, can't remember.

[PsychNitrous]

As a student of psychology, you should be able to ******** pretty much any test like this. If you know what it's testing for and what the criteria are that the test is looking for, you can figure out how to answer it easily to influence your results. Do you feel the same about the BDI? How about anxiety inventories? If you've studied it, it's obviuos what answer will get you what result.

[Kyttee69]

I would say that if someone is looking at themselves and answering the questions honestly, then I would expect the results would be accurate. The fact that you can anticipate the answers to get specific results doesn't make it bs...it just means that you know how to game the system.

[MyTorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by KarenSue

I understand your sentiments. I don't put much store in generalized "tests" of any kind. I have read that the DSM is non-scientific but puts itself out to be. I read that somewhere. Maybe here? IDK, can't remember.

glad you brought up the DSM because I have some words for that pile of trash too

DSM is not scientific. That's correct. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM for short, is literally about as scientific as a religious text.

Here's what's going on:
people often use the terms mental illness, mental disorder, and mental disease interchangeably. This is bad, because they all mean different things.

Mental illness: social construction that focuses on society
Mental disorder: social construction that focuses on the individual
Mental disease: a physical problem in the brain. The only scientific phrase out of the three.

An example of a disease of the mind: Alzheimer's!
An example of a mental illness: Depression
An example of a mental disorder: Pedophilia

The amount of people brain-washed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) just makes me want to build a space-ship and move to another planet :/

If you don't know what a social construction is, it's like an opinion but is applied to society.

So if I decided that a certain behavior needed to be kept under control in my society and that doing so would benefit my society as a whole, I would tell everyone that anyone engaging in this behavior is mentally ill. In this case, being mentally ill means you are a danger to my idea of a perfect society. It's ALL about society, you should really take a sociology class in a university if you like to learn more about this.

[MyTorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by PsychNitrous

As a student of psychology, you should be able to ******** pretty much any test like this. If you know what it's testing for and what the criteria are that the test is looking for, you can figure out how to answer it easily to influence your results. Do you feel the same about the BDI? How about anxiety inventories? If you've studied it, it's obviuos what answer will get you what result.

Psychology? That's a field of science. tests like this are not scientific. My studies do not provide me a better understanding of the "test" because the test is invalid. My studies provide me an understanding of how stupid and ****ty the people who made the tests are.

I don't believe that inventories, at least the ones based on the DSM, are worth more than the **** in my cat's litter box.

[PsychNitrous]

Originally Posted by MyTorturedSoul

Psychology? That's a field of science. tests like this are not scientific. My studies do not provide me a better understanding of the "test" because the test is invalid. My studies provide me an understanding of how stupid and ****y the people who made the tests are. That's what my OP said but you didn't get the memo.

I don't believe that inventories, at least the ones based on the DSM, are worth more than the **** in my cat's litter box.

My point was that if you know what a test like thus is looking for, it's easy to fool it. I don't have the time it energy to try and defend any of this to you, and you'd probably ignore me if I tried. I guess I should've skipped over this one.

Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk

[sabby]

I'm not quite understanding why you seem so angry about this test. As is stated by DocJohn in one of the sticky threads at the top of this forum:

What's the purpose of the test?

To provide a general, rough screening for a number of mental health issues that could be of concern to you.

As you can see, the idea of the test is to give you a general idea of mental health issues that could be of concern to you. It's not diagnosing you, only giving you a general idea. Of course anyone can answer whatever way they see fit, whether it's truthful or a lie. But, why lie about things that are bothering you when all it hurts is yourself by doing so?

Here's the link to the sticky thread for your convenience.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/sanit...ead-first.html

[Jewelsmom]

Originally Posted by MyTorturedSoul

this "quiz" is ********. It's supposed to be "scientific" but I guess we can throw that word around like candy these days, huh? I was able to match each question to each category while I was still taking the quiz. The average idiot with no self-awareness will believe things like this are magical and amazing, meanwhile I can read the minds of these ********ters just from reading the questions they are asking me, which is means this quiz is ********.

Woah now. Calling people who may not have any experience with identifying certain conditions within themselves "average idiot with no self-awareness" isn't too nice. I understand where you're coming from and yes, it's quite easy to pinpoint what these questions are hinting at but not everyone is as well aware of themselves as you, the psychology student.

[Antiessentialist]

Originally Posted by MyTorturedSoul

this "quiz" is ********. It's supposed to be "scientific" but I guess we can throw that word around like candy these days, huh? I was able to match each question to each category while I was still taking the quiz. The average idiot with no self-awareness will believe things like this are magical and amazing, meanwhile I can read the minds of these ********ters just from reading the questions they are asking me, which is means this quiz is ********.

The survey was too short to include multiple queries on the same topic of varying valences, and didn't seem to employ some number of survey construction techniques like phrasing and question ordering to avoid priming. That said, they're unlikely to recapitulate the MMPI or to even have internal validity metrics at all. I also have serious doubts regarding the statistical methods employed given the way the results were phrased in terms of various numbers of points in various categories, which suggests that at best a crude factor analysis if even that was employed, where clustering analyses seem likely to be more appropriate ontologies to me than independent axes of pathology. I also have my doubts that the measures of various pathologies were calibrated against general populations or that the empirical distributions of responses are being significantly analyzed to the extent that elevation of the statistics used as the basis for some category of pathology in the test's reports may not be statistically significant as an indicator, and nothing like F-values are being reported. This is not to say that I have any significant background in statistics or psychology.

[Cyllya]

I share your disdain for the DSM, but since it's so prolific, I can't really fault other resources that use it. Especially since these kinds of internet things can't really provide any help directly besides recommending that you go talk to a doctor/therapist about whatever problem it thinks you have, it pretty much has to be based on the DSM, because the doctor/therapist is going to be using the DSM.

For example, anytime I see someone asking about a problem that sounds like initiation deficit (a matter close to my metaphorical heart), I'd like it if I could tell them it's called initiation deficit, tell them the name of a condition that entails that symptom, recommend they see a doctor about that condition, maybe mention some common treatments. But there doesn't seem to be anything in the DSM that has initiation deficit as part of the diagnostic criteria. So instead, I give them some ADHD-related anecdotes and maybe some suggestions on how to reword the description of the problem so it sounds like a concentration issue.

DSM aside, the test often asked some weird questions. I think there were a few where you have to be knowledgeable about psychology/psychiatry in order to understand what kind of info it was looking for. (I think this is sometimes a problem in actual diagnostic interviews too!)

Originally Posted by MyTorturedSoul

Here's what's going on:
people often use the terms mental illness, mental disorder, and mental disease interchangeably. This is bad, because they all mean different things.

Mental illness: social construction that focuses on society
Mental disorder: social construction that focuses on the individual
Mental disease: a physical problem in the brain. The only scientific phrase out of the three.

An example of a disease of the mind: Alzheimer's!
An example of a mental illness: Depression
An example of a mental disorder: Pedophilia

The kind of depression I have would fit your definition of a mental disease... but pretty much all of the depression-related DSM diagnoses could apply to that kind of disease OR to being sad because your life sucks.