HOW THIS TEST WORKS
How How Connected Do I Feel? works
How version core-v1 is scored, and what it can and cannot tell you.
How it is scored
Social connection means feeling close to others and that you belong. Research links strong social relationships with better health and a longer life (Holt-Lunstad and others, 2010), and finds that lasting loneliness can harm health and mood (Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010). Belonging is a basic human need (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Reviews of ways to reduce loneliness find that changing how we think about social situations tends to help more than just adding contact (Masi and others, 2011).
This test looks at five areas: close bonds, belonging, feeling understood, reaching out, and being at ease alone. Each area has eight sentences. Four describe a connected feeling or habit and four describe the opposite. Each answer gives 0 to 4 points. Each area score runs from 0 to 100, and your overall score is the average of the five.
PersonalitySite.com wrote all of these questions and descriptions. They are not copied from any other test.
What it cannot tell you
This test is for learning about yourself. It is not a diagnosis. It cannot tell you if you have depression, social anxiety, or any other condition. Do not use it to hire, judge, rank, or label people.
A lower score does not mean something is wrong with you. Moves, losses, health problems, disability, and big life changes make connection harder, and so can living in a place where it is hard to meet people. Some people are happy with few contacts, and that is fine.
This version has not yet been tested with a large group of people, so we do not yet know how accurate it is.