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???

I'm confused as to how your political affiliation is going to affect your capacity for empathy for other people and the ability to see others' perspectives, which is largely what CASPer cares about.

This thread has no future. It is going to 100% devolve into a flame war at some point.
 
Seihai said:
???

I'm confused as to how your political affiliation is going to affect your capacity for empathy for other people and the ability to see others' perspectives, which is largely what CASPer cares about.

This thread has no future. It is going to 100% devolve into a flame war at some point.
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Liberal: over emphasizing feelings and making sure to not step on toes
Conservative: personal responsibility, accountability, etc, with less regard to feelings.

I believe that's the assumption OP is making.
 
I don’t believe the test had a bearing on political ideology or role of government (just took it). It’s moreso to measure your empathy in personal or work situations. To do better on the test, I found addressing and considering personal responsibility to be important, especially your own in whatever role you’re taking in the situation. As a physician at the end of the day you will likely have to treat people who hurt themselves based on their poor personal choices, but part of your your job is to offer solutions to the health predicament they are in, and in doing so you are being compassionate in your care. While I feel the test itself is not fool-proof, the attributes they are trying to evaluate is important for personal skills in a physician.
 
hotchocolate1997 said:
CASPer of course claims to measure empathy. But I'm just curious if people think it actually does a good job at this? Do you just take their word for it without maybe questioning its accuracy?

The idea and interpretation of what empathy is is at the heart of ALL politics. I don't know if you follow American politics but we're currently having a huge debate over our immigration policies and the conditions of detention centers. Both sides of the political isle are accusing eachother of exactly this: EMPATHY. Both sides have completely different interpretations of what it really is and how it should manifest in daily life. Your idea of empathy, in my opinion, is at the heart of your political perspective.
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Yeah.... This won't end well.

As for the bolded, no. Probably weeds out slow typers more so than sociopaths.
 
I think you’re overthinking it. Apply your own interpretation of empathy to these personal/work scenarios and it probably wouldn’t be much different from a liberals. It’s only different in politics because you’re selecting which groups (or in your case, all individuals) to empathize with but as long as you can justify your thinking you will be fine.
 
Mikey1025 said:
I think you’re overthinking it. Apply your own interpretation of empathy to these personal/work scenarios and it probably wouldn’t be much different from a liberals. It’s only different in politics because you’re selecting which groups (or in your case, all individuals) to empathize with but as long as you can justify your thinking you will be fine.
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This is good advise. Thank you! I think I am overthinking it.
 
doctorcocter said:
As for the bolded, no. Probably weeds out slow typers more so than sociopaths.
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This. I'm a really fast typer (90+ wpm) and I was routinely having about 50 seconds left for the third question of each scenario. And sure, you could say that I wasn't managing my time appropriately, but isn't the whole point of the test to consider all the intricacies of ethically complex situations? The average person types about 40 wpm. I can't fathom how they would be able to convey well crafted answers with the 5 minute time limit.
 
???? pretty much all CASPer questions are about being able to work together with other people, resolve disagreements, and handle situations in a reasonable, clear-sighted and respectful manner. Your political alignment has nothing to do with this.

I think it doesn't do a great job because it barely gives you enough time to write rushed, fragmented sentences.... and I say this as a decently fast typer.
 
As for OP's question, I do sort of see his point. For instance, one of my scenarios was a guy who bought tickets for a group of friends and one of the friend hasn't paid him back yet, now he can't afford his bills. One of my suggestions was that the group of friends could help the original guy pay his bills until the friend was able to pay him back. But if you were a strict conservative, you may think that the original guy took a fiscally irresponsible risk and will have to just suffer the consequences.
 
hotchocolate1997 said:
You really give them that much credit? Idk, my main issue with the test is I feel like it trys to push you towards certain answers/perspectives. Also, on certain parts it kinda makes you to say how you would make decisions for another person.

A hardcore libertarian (which I am not quite) would go crazy at this! Also the term "responsibility" is such a buzzword! It's literally everywhere. Everytime that word came up in a question, Milton Friedman quotes I learned in high school econ kept coming up in my head lol. He believed there's no such thing as social responsibility at all (which I'm definitely not on board with). But for someone who really believes this strongly, they're screwed on this test just for this core belief, because they can't even begin to answer some of the questions. All their answers would be "I would do nothing, I don't owe no one s***" (an exaggeration, but you get my point).
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Maybe medical schools wouldn't want to accept a student who believes there is no such thing as social responsibility. In that case CASPer would be doing it's intended job. No?
 
hotchocolate1997 said:
You really give them that much credit? Idk, my main issue with the test is I feel like it trys to push you towards certain answers/perspectives. Also, on certain parts it kinda makes you to say how you would make decisions for another person.

A hardcore libertarian (which I am not quite) would go crazy at this! Also the term "responsibility" is such a buzzword! It's literally everywhere. Everytime that word came up in a question, Milton Friedman quotes I learned in high school econ kept coming up in my head lol. He believed there's no such thing as social responsibility at all (which I'm definitely not on board with). But for someone who really believes this strongly, they're screwed on this test just for this core belief, because they can't even begin to answer some of the questions. All their answers would be "I would do nothing, I don't owe no one s***" (an exaggeration, but you get my point).
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I think CASPer is an annoying hurdle that adds additional cost to an already expensive application process, but I do understand what they are trying to achieve with the question format. Also, I would argue someone who refuses to take into account someone else's situation/perspective and incorporate that in their decision-making process is possibly unfit for a life of service. If a patient isn't eating healthy, as a doctor you can't just say "f*** you" and give up on them. Yeah, them not eating healthy is their personal choice and you can't fix it for them, but your job is literally striving to do what you can within your ability to improve patient health.

Either way I think you're overthinking this. CASPer has no right answers—if you can offer clear reasoning and show that you've considered both sides of the situation, I would say there shouldn't be any worries.
 
hotchocolate1997 said:
I just took the practice test. As someone who believes pretty strongly in the importance of personal responsibility, I feel like this test is at complete odds with me. I've never taken a bioethics course. Maybe I'm missing that background and that's whats up.

Idk, the whole thing feels oddly political. I'd be really curious to know the score differential between a random sample of liberals and conservatives on this thing.

(and no, I'm not a triggered republican complaining about liberal bias here, these are just my thoughts, not looking for a flame war).

(I also realize I don't know how I scored at all. Who knows, maybe I killed it! If I were to guess though, I did pretty poorly).
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You may be interested in the seminal paper on what would become CASPer (originally called CMSENS):

Extending the interview to all medical school candidates--Computer-Based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS). - PubMed - NCBI
Extending the interview to all medical school candidates--Computer-Based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS).
Dore KL1, Reiter HI, Eva KW, Krueger S, Scriven E, Siu E, Hilsden S, Thomas J, Norman GR.
Acad Med. 2009 Oct;84(10 Suppl):S9-12.

BACKGROUND:
Most medical school candidates are excluded without benefit of noncognitive skills assessment. Is development of a noncognitive preinterview screening test that correlates with the well-validated Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI) possible?

METHOD:
Study 1: 110 medical school candidates completed MMI and Computer-based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS)-eight 1-minute video-based scenarios and four self-descriptive questions, with short-answer-response format. Seventy-eight responses were audiotaped, 32 typewritten; all were scored by two independent raters. Study 2: 167 candidates completed CMSENS-eight videos, six self-descriptive questions, typewritten responses only, scored by two raters; 88 of 167 underwent the MMI.

RESULTS:
Results for overall test generalizability, interrater reliability, and correlation with MMI, respectively, were, for Study 1, audio-responders: 0.86, 0.82, 0.15; typewritten-responders: 0.72, 0.81, 0.51; and for Study 2, 0.83, 0.95, 0.46 (correlation with disattenuation was 0.60).

CONCLUSIONS:
Strong psychometric properties, including MMI correlation, of CMSENS warrant investigation into future widespread implementation as a preinterview noncognitive screening test.
 
sb247 said:
Know the game, play the game
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CASPer is a black box someone’s personality goes through to be turned into a number. It is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. I am uncomfortable with CASPer in general and would not be surprised to see that political orientation impacted scores.

I don’t think letter-writers or applicants would be too fond of software that proported to read LORs and churn out a “sentiment score.”
 
Kardio said:
CASPer is a black box someone’s personality goes through to be turned into a number. It is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. I am uncomfortable with CASPer in general and would not be surprised to see that political orientation impacted scores.

I don’t think letter-writers or applicants would be too fond of software that proported to read LORs and churn out a “sentiment score.”
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I think caspr sucks, I’m just saying you have to navigate the current reality
 
sb247 said:
I think caspr sucks, I’m just saying you have to navigate the current reality
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Nah man, I gotcha on that! It’s just that the lack of transparency is a challenge. Sorry if I came across rudely to you.

It has been a great opportunity for admissions consultants to fear monger and to teach people how to play though.
 
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