I AM AN AUTONOMOUS REBEL….A few months ago I linked to a piece Garance Franke-Ruta wrote in the American Prospect about some research into political attitudes based on consumer marketing surveys. As it happens, the consumer marketing company that did the research was Environics Research Group, a Canadian company.
If you’re looking for something to while away a few minutes this weekend, Scott Winship at the Daily Strategist points to one of the odder online surveys I’ve ever taken, a “shorter version of the standard one Environics uses to diagnose people’s values and tribal membership.” You can take it here.
As you can see, Environics has concluded that I’m (a) not very social and (b) slightly more modern than traditional. This ought to make me into an “Autonomous Post-Materialist,” but that category is reserved for Gen Xers. So no dice.
My choices, it turns out, are the ones in blue, and Environics places me about midway between the Disengaged Darwinists and the Autonomous Rebels. Neither one sounds very appealing, frankly, but “Disengaged Darwinist” sounds really dreadful, so Autonomous Rebel it is.
So how did Environics do? My “icons” are a bunch of Canadians I’ve never heard of plus Hillary and Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King Jr., Gloria Steinem, and John Lennon. I don’t know that I’d call these folks icons, precisely, but that’s not bad. They’re all people I mostly admire.
The rest of the description is sort of hit and miss, but not too bad overall. Which isn’t too surprising, since if you ask someone a bunch of questions about their social attitudes you ought to be able to turn around and tell them what their social attitudes are. Still, kinda fun for a weekend ? though I note that Scott was less excited by his tribal affiliation than I was. Give it a try if you’re bored.
