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rpu3 sent a link to this thread for my perusal and opinion. While psychometrics is not my primary area of study, I am getting up to speed quickly in this domain; I am developing a new course in Personnel Selection for spring quarter. So, I have been spending quite a bit of time researching the use of questionnaires for employment screening. A couple of thoughts regarding a potential swinger screening instrument: 1. A well-designed (and tested) instrument could be used to develop a profile of the average swinger using aggregate data. Unfortunately, using this instrument to assess an individual's potential for swinging is problematic as is always the case when one goes from the aggregate to the individual. Put simply, any instrument assesses an extremely limited number of traits; individuals are a very complex interaction of an almost infinite set of traits. 2. It is hard for me to imagine how one would persuade participants to complete the instrument. Kind of like, "Hello, would you mind filling out this questionnaire because, well, because... oh, nevermind, just fill it out." 3. Typically, those screened out by questionnaire results are then not "employed" or in this case would not be queried about the possibility of swinging, so the actual suitability of those screened out is never tested. 4. I am not sure thrill-seeking is a useful construct in this case. For example, wouldn't cheating develop more of a thrill than swinging? 5. Another seemingly applicable construct, let's say, an assessment of conventionality, might seem useful. It is easy to assume that swingers are less conventional than non swingers. And yet, a great deal of time is spent on this board discussing and developing rules, boundaries, and conventions to ensure that one's swinging experiences are positive. 6. The development of any psychometric instrument requires a relatively large sample--rarely is one fortunate enough to develop a useful instrument on the first attempt. Many revisions are typically required and the number of participants can be quite high to enable the researcher to develop a useful (predictive) instrument. In all, while the idea makes for interesting conversation, the practicality of actually developing such an instrument for such limited use seems to not stand up well to any reasonable cost/benefit analysis. If I were to undertake this project, I would plan for at least 5 exploratory iterations of the instrument and then plan to follow up with a final confirmatory test. I would probably allow 2 years or so to develop such an instrument. Bear in mind I have access to quite possibly the largest research university participant pool in the world. Even with that advantage, I would not expect to develop even a passable instrument in less than 2 years. And once that instrument was developed, I am not sure that it would meaningfully enhance one's ability to vet potential swinging partners in the "vanilla" population beyond the methods one already employs.