Enhancing Psychodiagnostic Validity: The Critical Role of the Answering Process in Socionics

In this note, I'll continue discussing the problem of psychodiagnostics, focusing now on the second part of the issue: the process of respondents answering questions.

Interestingly, it's the answering process itself, not just the answers, that is crucial for our task. The answer is the final product, which in the case of a questionnaire, has qualitative meaning. In other words, the answer either reflects the real state of affairs, or it doesn’t.

One way to avoid this unwanted dichotomy is to assign weight to the answers. For example, specialists from 16personalities implemented their questionnaire this way. This approach significantly enhances the validity of the data.

There are several other methods that can further influence this parameter. However, they all focus only on the result, not on the process itself.

In medicine, as I mentioned in the first part of this note, there are specific requirements for collecting biomaterials for lab analysis. For example, urine is best collected immediately after waking up.

On the other hand, sociology and psychology, which have fewer instrumental approaches compared to medicine, assume that anyone, at any time, is capable of providing adequate and relevant answers to questions. But is this true? Definitely not. There are many cases where a person fills out a questionnaire while intoxicated or surrounded by distractions like children or pets. What value does such data provide to a researcher?

Some experts try to solve this problem by implementing control questions or adding a “warm-up” block to the questionnaire. This helps the researcher determine if the data’s validity is near zero. However, time is wasted, and a secondary survey with the same questionnaire won't be as effective.

Modern gadgets, like mobile phones, have numerous sensors. If used correctly by a psychodiagnostics app, these sensors can ensure a proper level of validity, effectively solving the problem of the “question answering process” once and for all.