Things that *are* interesting and have higher chances of extrapolating are lots of types of correlations; in this case, I asked about BDSM and abusive childhoods. Maybe the correlation that showed up is due to selection bias, but how would that work?
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I would have had to, somehow, disproportionately selected for not just people into BDSM, but for ppl into BDSM who were abused. My twitter must have some way of being that sort of dissuades non-abused BDSM people from following me (and *doesn't* dissuade non-abused non-BDSM ppl)
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So we have two possible realities here - either I'm somehow having a strange selection effect that's very precise and cuts across two separate questions (bdsm and abuse), *or* there's an actual effect that correlates BDSM and childhood abuse. Of the two, the latter is less absurd
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But this is the thing that bothers me - people don't realize that proposing a selection bias is proposing another theory for the results, and that depending on the type of question asked, this theory they're proposing is often extremely unlikely.
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It's like ppl just register that I'm asking through twitter, know that my twitter account doesn't have a good sampling of the population, and then assume this means that selection bias is a good theory for any sort of twitter poll finding. No! This isn't how it works!
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And I'm NOT saying that my childhood abuse/bdsm poll is conclusive, there's a lot of possible explanations for it and I'd want to replicate this in a better, more careful and detailed survey to check on other causes. But yelling 'selection bias' just makes me wanna punch you
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the way it's delivered to me is often a bad, lazy critique that doesnt understand how bias works or how it impacts things we check for. If you tell me *how* it might be selection bias then im happy to engage: what is your theory for the selection pressures on my respondents?
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If you're like 'hey aella, i think this might be mostly just due to selection bias because you have a high following in this one BDSM recovery from childhood abuse forum that you didn't know about", I'd be like whoah, that's a great point I had no idea
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Replying to @Aella_Girl
Counterpoint, you have extremely uneven demographics following you in several categories from belief structure to gender to race. So this is not a robust survey with regards to a reflection of the general public.
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Replying to @AikaMcSlut @Aella_Girl
Counterpoint 2: you then have to factor in the actual reach of your survey. Perhaps it was retweeted by someone who is followed by a lot of unusual people. Perhaps it was shared on a discord server or forum full of unusual people. Etc.
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yes, maybe; this is often why I repeat polls over time to see how stable answers are. You can check my full poll list on my website to see how answers change over time! In general, the majority of questions don't fluctuate a lot upon repeat asks.
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