Why do people take the Political Compass seriously?

[angus]

I generally score more to the left on the political compass test than on the political matrix test.  They're both for entertainment purposes only, BRTD.  Just for fun.  You should try not to take these things too seriously.

Here's what I got today on political compass:

Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -2.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69



Pretty close to Gandhi. 

[angus]

The test has stupid questions (astrology? really?

religion too.  It's really not so stupid, though.  I think it probably takes astrology, religion, etc., into its algorithm on the vertical axis.  I'd imagine that they correlate authority with the the idea that stars or gods or other mystical forces control our fate, and they correlate liberty with those who are less into religion, astrology, etc.  That'd be my guess.  It's probably not necessarily a valid proposition, because there are many people who are into religion or astrology or metaphysics who are quite libertarian.  

Just for fun, I picked Strongly Disagree on every question to see what happens.  I scored exactly in the middle:  

Economic Left/Right: 0.0
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36

This makes me think that their questions were written in an attempt not to favor the left or the right.  If Strongly Disagree had given me a +10 or a -10 on the left/right axis, then I think some of the arguments here might be justified.  

I really don't think it's a conspiracy, and I think it's important not to take the political compass, the political matrix, SmartSelect, the Harvard political quiz, or any of the other little ideology quizzes too seriously.  They really are just for entertainment purposes.  It's somewhat ironic that the OP asks why people take them seriously.  Indeed, the creation of this thread evidences the fact that its author is taking it all very seriously.    

There are political tests that actually give you a label rather than a number.  Political matrix and political compass studiously attempt to avoid labels, preferring numbers.  (They are pretty consistent, you must admit.  I think it's hard to fault them in that regard.  Then again, it's just a mathematical algorithm so that's not surprising.)  Some of them give you a nifty label such as NeoLiberal or Anarcho-Capitalist or Nihilist or Marxist.  Those are fun as well.  I think there are links to many political quizzes in a thread on this forum in the Individual Politics board.  None are really better than any of the others.  They all follow pre-determined algorithms to match your answers up with a set of numbers or a label.  Well, the political matrix does have the advantage of allowing you to display your score under your username so you can advertise that you're a quiz nerd, but other than that they're all pretty similar:  gross oversimplifications of reality based on someone's brand of philosophical reductionism.  

[angus]

Also, if you don't believe Astrology is accurate, your authoritarian score goes up.

That's a little surprising, and opposite my guess, so I looked into it.  I've uncovered some statistics and find that there apparently is little consistent correlation between belief in the ability of the stars to guide our fates and political ideology.  So it is probably based on a faulty assumption.  On the other hand, at least in the anglophone world, there is a correlation between gender and such beliefs.  This is from a 2005 Harris poll conducted in the US, the UK, and Canada.  The percentages are of those who responded positively to the question, "Can the position of the stars or planets affects people's lives?"

USA  Male  23
USA Female  28
Canada Male  17
Canada Female  33
UK Male  15
UK Female  30

And if you don't like abstract art, then it goes up too.

This may not be based on a faulty assumption, according to a large body of research.  A number of psychology papers concluded that the processing of abstract art correlates to an increase in alpha waves (8 - 12 Hz in frequency) of the brain.  These are associated with wakeful periods during sleep, and with Zen-trained meditation masters.  Totalitarian-minded leaders, both on the Left and on the Right, have generally required the afectation of charisma--Think of Hitler, Mussolini, and Pol Pot--which generally happens at the alpha-theta border (~7.5 Hz), thus requiring lower alpha and higher theta wave activity in the occipital lobe and hippocampus than would generally be associated with the analysis of abstract art.

All the questions are phrased so poorly, that it makes me want to slam my head into a wall.

On-line quiz questions are generally worded poorly.  They are not run through the usual editing process that print materials for scholarly purposes are.  But that's not really the point, is it?  If you're slamming your head into a wall, then you too are taking this quiz too seriously.

Like all quizzes, this one has its faults, but it is no more or less consistent than the rest.  It puts Reagan to the right of Marx, and above Gandhi.  It puts the SNP to the left of the Conservative Party and above the Green Party.  It puts me generally somewhere in between Jimmy Carter and Margaret Thatcher.  I'd say that results are fairly self-consistent.  

Try this one out for size:



Nothing very serious about this result--Do we really know how Trump, Clinton, Stein, or Johnson would answer all these questions?  Probably not--but I'd say that relatively speaking the result is spot on.  i.e., I have no trouble believing that Donald Trump is more authoritarian than Hillary Clinton, and that Hillary Clinton is more authoritarian that Gary Johnson, and that Jill Stein is about the same as Gary Johnson by that measure.  Moreover, I have no trouble believing that Jill stein is far, far to the left of the other three, Johnson is the rightmost economically, and that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are fairly similar on the left/right scale, with different priorities, however.