Contact and attachment issues

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I'm still not content with the contact and attachment issues in Aspie Quiz. I think I might have missed something that should be there.

Specifically this question bugs me:
Would you put a lot of time and effort into getting the attention of a potential partner?

Actually, it both was a hit and a failure. It's good because it correlates (positively) to both Aspie contact and Aspie attachment. It's a failure because it also correlates (positively) to both NT communication and NT social (and a host of other traits). I think the groups interpret "a lot" in fundamentally different ways. Ideas on how to make NTs answer this negatively (while still making Aspies answer it positively) are welcome.

List of contact traits:
Do you find it easier to understand and communicate with odd & unusual people than with ordinary people?
Do you have an alternative view of what is attractive in the opposite sex?
Is your sense of humor different from mainstream or considered odd?
Do you naturally fit into the expected gender stereotypes? (reversed)
Do you have unusual sexual preferences?
Do you prefer to construct your own set of spiritual beliefs rather than following existing religions / belief-systems?
Are you more sexually attracted to strangers than to people you know well?
Would you accept polyamory if you knew your partner would?

List of attachment traits:
Have people you formed strong attachments to taken advantage of you?
Do you have favorite places nearby that you need to visit from time to time?
Do you tend to become obsessed with a potential partner and cannot let go of him/her?
Do you tend to look a lot at people you like and little or not at all at people you dislike?
Do you have a need to confess?
Have you experienced stronger than normal attachments to certain people?
Do you worry that romantic partners won't care as much about you as you care about them?
Do you only enjoy hugs from people you are attached to?
Do you prefer to have friends of the opposite gender?

I'm not sure what you are saying.
Are you asking a question?
Because I did the new test and I got 192/10.
I also answered all of these questions, so I am unsure whether you are making a statement or wanting an opinion.
Could you please elaborate?

I want a better way to state the attention issue, and I want new issues that I have not come up with yet myself. I'm sure there should be other people that have experienced this and that can add more issues. You don't need to be confident about them either, as the validity is determined by checking them.

Do you only enjoy hugs from people you are attached to?

You could try "Do you only enjoy close physical contact from your closest (don't know what word to put here)?

Do you prefer to have friends of the opposite gender?

Do you have more friends of the opposite gender than you do of yours? (Needs a bit of work on though.)

Maybe: "Are most of your friends of the opposite gender?".

Yes. That works (for me).

I think I understand why the attention question misses the point now. (Would you put a lot of time and effort into getting the attention of a potential partner?). It starts to become apparent that NT females score it highest, and it is probably interpreted as fixing themselves up to look good. Same for NT males. That was not at all the intention (but it might lead up to another NT attachment issue). Still thinking about other possible way to ask about this so it doesn't miss the point.

I like these questions. And as for the last one, how about; "Would you spend a lot of time actively seeking out a potential partner?" This way it is less about the "getting ready" or fixing themselves up part and more about the process of looking for a partner.

This section (but not the attachment section) might have to be scrapped entirely if your goal is to make NTs answer negatively. As it is, it screens in quirky NTs. That's a larger group than you might think. It could skew your results towards misidentifying quirky NTs as Aspies. It's easy enough to screen out non-quirky NTs. But the catch is that the NTs most likely to take your test are the ones who are trying to figure out what their quirks can be attributed to. So it's important that your test be able to differentiate between them and Aspies. As it is, your test will skew to giving false positive scores to the subset of NTs who are also the NTs most likely to be taking your test.

I can't think of a way to re-word the questions to screen out quirky NTs since the entire section makes the assumption there is no such group.

Last edited by Janissy on 01 Mar 2014, 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with Janissy. Also, it is nice to see you Janissy as I was reading the NT/AS hotline and your wisdom was very useful and it is nice to see you after this to know you are still active and spreading your wisdom.
I gave this test to a dyspraxic friend of mine and I feel as though this happened with him as his is almost definitely not AS.

Yes, this is much closer to the point I wanted to make. Maybe I should even state it as trying to be at the same places?`That would probably not be appreciated by NTs that primarily seek contact at social gatherings. As for the NT version, I think "Do you spend a lot of time and effort on your appearance in order to attract potential mates?".

I think I need to disagree on this one. While I'm sure these questions could be changed to give better relevance for neurodiversity, they are certainly not on the NT spectrum of things. For instance, NT sexual preferences are entirely concentrated to the attachment dimension, in already formed or forming relationships. In neurodiversity, these appear to frequently center in the contact phase, which is the basis for both being more sexually attracted to strangers and unusual sexual preferences. Even if "being unable to approach somebody you are attracted to" is a problem in the NT contact dimension, it also has some crucial role in the neurodiverse contact behavior. The latter is extremely common in neurodiversity, and I suspect a major player in the relationship problems male Aspies experience. Thus, we need to understand these issues, and the route to understanding is trough knowing the issues. If we discard this as "quirky NT" traits, we miss the opportunity to learn more about them. Besides, all of these correlate positively to neurodiversity.

An Aspergers test needs to be able to differentiate Aspergers from other types of neurodiversity. Otherwise it is a neurodiversity test. It also needs to be able to differentiate neurodiversity from quirky NTness. I answer "yes" to 4 of those questions and am not neurodiverse unless one wants to count dyscalcula and introversion as part of neurodiversity. Of course this is just one subsegment, but any instrument that is to be useful must bring false positives down to a minimum.

Aspie Quiz is a neurodiversity test that happens to have the highest relevance for the autism spectrum. It needs to stay a neurodiversity test with a well-defined definition of neurodiversity (primary factor of factor analysis on a broad test covering all of human diversity), otherwise it must cling to diagnostic criteria that has been defined on a board of psychiatrists. The latter would make it unusable for research as all the traits part of autism are already defined and cannot be changed.



Differentiation is done by the neurodiversity definition used to construct Aspie Quiz which was applied already around 2006.

And the main point is that even if Aspie Quiz is a neurodiversity-test, all the issues it covers that aren't part of the autism definitions are important co-morbid conditions whether psychiatry likes this or not.