score: 3 2 on #16 and I threw in 0.25 on a few others because the 0 response was a bit too absolute.

prog: 55-65 The job and the hobby. I will cut myself off at ~65, more is self-destructive.

they don't make the distinction between having interest in fictional scenarios, and having interest in your partners.

Laughing. You've been married, then.

for the fact that some of the participants are 20 - 25, i.e. people going through quarter life crises where they realize that they still don't know exactly what they want to do with their lives, but they want to do something

Yeah, really tough on some people.

for the fact that some of the participants are 20 - 25, i.e. people going through quarter life crises where they realize that they still don't know exactly what they want to do with their lives, but they want to do something

Yeah, really tough on some people.

Ah, boy. Here we go.

20

I have answered similar questions to these a couple of times during the last 10 years and I arrive at roughly the same answer every time. I have not taken any medication or seeked help in any way, I have only received a diagnoses from a doctor. I am not bi polar, do not have schizophrenia or suffer from any other mental illness as far as I am aware. I just feel like this all the time. I am very concerned that I am going to begin going completely off the rails in the future.

I answered the questions literally. For example: I do not want to kill myself, but I enjoy the thought of not being alive.

60 hours a week coding. It's my job and hobby, and just about the only subject I think about.

I am surprised so many people here score so low on these tests, I assumed everyone felt at least somewhat like me.

I appreciate all your criticisms, that will help me in my evaluation of the testing methods validity! :D

As to concerns I am only applying the test to programmers thats not true, at least not in intent, I did ask these questions on DeviantArt too, but only got one response, and she was a programmer!

So yeah, I know there are problems, this is my first psych experiment ever, so a little slack might be nice.

Score: 4.
Hours: ~40/wk.

Given that the questions are written such that I am my own standard to compare against, I think it would be hard to result in a high number without external aggravating circumstances.

Programmers are analysts by nature so the abundance of comments regarding the quality of each question should actually be expected. I might expect posing the same set of questions to doctors would result in similar criticisms. Which could maybe be an interesting thing to investigate, comparing levels of feedback and responses from different professions not for a study in depression but a study of personalities.

So yeah, I know there are problems, this is my first psych experiment ever, so a little slack might be nice.

If this is only for a school project or something, then that's fine. But if you plan on publishing the results, then scrutiny is very important if you don't want to deliver inconclusive results.

So yeah, I know there are problems, this is my first psych experiment ever, so a little slack might be nice.

I understand that it may be possible that you were provided this form verbatim by your professor or something, but if you are creating this yourself, constructive criticism is good. Since it fails to accurately diagnose both people who aren't depressed, and people who are severely depressed due to the poor wording, this must be corrected before the test is employed again. It's good to catch it on the first experiment, to give you more experience for the next. The detailed explanations given by everyone above are excellent, because we hear it from both ends of the spectrum.

I scored 47, but I would not consider myself as being depressed at this time. Quite the opposite. Perhaps a simple Cosmo-style quiz is just wholly inadequate for real diagnostic purposes.

The BDI is actually a very commonly used test in care settings, but it's not intended as a diagnostic tool. The BDI is used a lot in CBT, where it's one of many periodic monitoring tools for the patient to log their mood changes and look at ways that events in their life affect their scores.

The BDI is actually a very commonly used test in care settings, but it's not intended as a diagnostic tool. The BDI is used a lot in CBT, where it's one of many periodic monitoring tools for the patient to log their mood changes and look at ways that events in their life affect their scores.

Pretty much this. While all the magazines, quizes and internet adds might give you that impression, psychology is not about just a few checkboxes in some random poll.

Its like thinking programming is just typing stuff in the keyboard and hitting compile every now and then :D