I think the fact that the engagement scale makes reference to specific activities as examples is worth bearing in mind (we’ve discussed this before, going back to the 2019 post where we introduced the scale, and the 2020 post, and more recently in the comments on the Demographics post).
You’re right that there could be an influence from ‘the scale mentioning “attending an EA Global conference” as an example in one of the higher engagement categories’ → people who attend EAG being more likely to be select (and so be counted as) higher engagement → higher engagement people being more likely to say EAG was important for them getting involved (because they are more likely to have attended EAG).
However, I think there a few reasons why the results are nevertheless not likely to be largely circular.
As implied above, this is somewhat indirect. The engagement measure refers to attending EA Global, but not whether EA Global was important for getting involved. So, in theory, it’s possible for people to attend EAG but not select it as important for getting them involved. If people who attended EAG didn’t report it being important for them getting involved, increasing the association between engagement and attending EAG would not help the association between engagement and reporting EAG being important.
Although EAG is mentioned as an example in the scale, it’s possible to be highly engaged but not attend EAG (around just over 45% of highly engaged respondents had not attended EAG, or to attend EAG but not be highly engaged (around 31.6% of EAG attendees). This is using 2020 data, since we did not ask about EAG attendance this year.
You mention “being a member of a group”, but “regularly attending events at a local group” is given as an example of Moderate engagement, which would fall below High engagement in the binary categorisation we use in these analyses.
Similarly, engaging with “articles, videos, podcasts, discussions, or events on effective altruism” and “subscribing to the 80,000 Hours podcast” are mentioned as examples in the same level of the engagement scale, but we do not observe comparably large bumps for these factors. [Edit] However, we do observe large effects for other factors which aren’t mentioned in the definition of the scales (e.g. personal contacts).
I’d also add that many more EAs (both highly engaged and less engaged, though more among the highly engaged than the less engaged) have undertaken activities such as read an EA book (2019 data) than have attended EAG or attended a local group. So, one might expect that even greater numbers in both of these groups would report that a book was important for getting them involved. But we don’t observe this, EA groups are still cited as important considerably more frequently than EA books, despite fewer EAs having encountered them.
Thanks for the comment.
I think the fact that the engagement scale makes reference to specific activities as examples is worth bearing in mind (we’ve discussed this before, going back to the 2019 post where we introduced the scale, and the 2020 post, and more recently in the comments on the Demographics post).
You’re right that there could be an influence from ‘the scale mentioning “attending an EA Global conference” as an example in one of the higher engagement categories’ → people who attend EAG being more likely to be select (and so be counted as) higher engagement → higher engagement people being more likely to say EAG was important for them getting involved (because they are more likely to have attended EAG).
However, I think there a few reasons why the results are nevertheless not likely to be largely circular.
As implied above, this is somewhat indirect. The engagement measure refers to attending EA Global, but not whether EA Global was important for getting involved. So, in theory, it’s possible for people to attend EAG but not select it as important for getting them involved. If people who attended EAG didn’t report it being important for them getting involved, increasing the association between engagement and attending EAG would not help the association between engagement and reporting EAG being important.
Although EAG is mentioned as an example in the scale, it’s possible to be highly engaged but not attend EAG (around just over 45% of highly engaged respondents had not attended EAG, or to attend EAG but not be highly engaged (around 31.6% of EAG attendees). This is using 2020 data, since we did not ask about EAG attendance this year.
You mention “being a member of a group”, but “regularly attending events at a local group” is given as an example of Moderate engagement, which would fall below High engagement in the binary categorisation we use in these analyses.
Similarly, engaging with “articles, videos, podcasts, discussions, or events on effective altruism” and “subscribing to the 80,000 Hours podcast” are mentioned as examples in the same level of the engagement scale, but we do not observe comparably large bumps for these factors. [Edit] However, we do observe large effects for other factors which aren’t mentioned in the definition of the scales (e.g. personal contacts).
I’d also add that many more EAs (both highly engaged and less engaged, though more among the highly engaged than the less engaged) have undertaken activities such as read an EA book (2019 data) than have attended EAG or attended a local group. So, one might expect that even greater numbers in both of these groups would report that a book was important for getting them involved. But we don’t observe this, EA groups are still cited as important considerably more frequently than EA books, despite fewer EAs having encountered them.