Fascinating, thanks for doing this research—excited to see more work in this area.
Is it possible that being E and A correlates with EAs who have been involved and absorbed EA ideas but wouldn’t correlate with EAs if you were able to survey them before they got involved in EA?
I found myself agreeing with the statements that predicted E and A but not sure I would have done before getting into EA.
I could also imagine someone who is very open to reasonable arguments but isn’t particularly E or A but comes to agree with the statements over time.
[sorry if I’ve misrepresented what you’re saying—I read the post a couple of days ago and may be misremembering]
Is it possible that being E and A correlates with EAs who have been involved and absorbed EA ideas but wouldn’t correlate with EAs if you were able to survey them before they got involved in EA?
That there is no correlation at all seems unlikely to me. (I could expand on that.)
However, I do agree that there is plausibly an effect where being involved in EA, interacting with fellow EAs and hearing EA arguments makes you score even more highly on expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus scales than when you first encountered EA.
I could also imagine someone who is very open to reasonable arguments but isn’t particularly E or A but comes to agree with the statements over time.
That seems plausible to me as well, particularly for effectiveness-focus.
I agree no correlation would be surprising but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it was less predictive than say ”openness to new ideas” or something.
I wonder if you could learn more by interviewing people who are just starting to get interested in EA and seeing how their responses change over say a year? Interviewing people who have just started an intro to EA fellowship/virtual program could work well for this.
I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it was less predictive than say ”openness to new ideas” or something.
That seems possible, yeah. (Generally, it would be interesting to see if other personality traits are also predictive.)
I wonder if you could learn more by interviewing people who are just starting to get interested in EA and seeing how their responses change over say a year? Interviewing people who have just started an intro to EA fellowship/virtual program could work well for this.
Fascinating, thanks for doing this research—excited to see more work in this area.
Is it possible that being E and A correlates with EAs who have been involved and absorbed EA ideas but wouldn’t correlate with EAs if you were able to survey them before they got involved in EA?
I found myself agreeing with the statements that predicted E and A but not sure I would have done before getting into EA.
I could also imagine someone who is very open to reasonable arguments but isn’t particularly E or A but comes to agree with the statements over time.
[sorry if I’ve misrepresented what you’re saying—I read the post a couple of days ago and may be misremembering]
Thanks!
That there is no correlation at all seems unlikely to me. (I could expand on that.)
However, I do agree that there is plausibly an effect where being involved in EA, interacting with fellow EAs and hearing EA arguments makes you score even more highly on expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus scales than when you first encountered EA.
That seems plausible to me as well, particularly for effectiveness-focus.
Thanks for the reply.
I agree no correlation would be surprising but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it was less predictive than say ”openness to new ideas” or something.
I wonder if you could learn more by interviewing people who are just starting to get interested in EA and seeing how their responses change over say a year? Interviewing people who have just started an intro to EA fellowship/virtual program could work well for this.
That seems possible, yeah. (Generally, it would be interesting to see if other personality traits are also predictive.)
Good idea, that would definitely be informative!
Cool—thanks for engaging in this! Excited to see what you do in future.