> something That's the keyword. Something, not "need for uniqueness." The change can be anything, e.g. a change in the respondent population, or a trend from

> something That's the keyword. Something, not "need for uniqueness." The change can be anything, e.g. a change in the respondent population, or a trend from desktop to mobile (which has been reported to have an effect on how people answer scale questions). E.g., if you look at the graphs, there's an increase in standard deviation over time, and a pretty big one too. Where does that come from? You can't just say "hey, I have a post-hoc hypothesis, some very noisy data, and some correlation fits, so I must be right." > isn’t it appropriate to interpret it as at least a flawed piece of evidence against ... a rise in social anxiety In what way? First, need for uniqueness and social anxiety are two different things. Second, the need for uniqueness may have risen, while other trends are pushing the line downwards. And third, the relation between the questionnaire and need for uniqueness is tentative, to say the least. One of the questions they included is “It is better to always agree with the opinion of others than to be considered a disagreeable person.” It's all hand waving. So no, I can't agree, and it would be unethical to draw any real-life conclusions from such an article. > I’m not sure it’s fair to imply that serious people didn’t think seriously It is naive to think they found a solution for that, and forgot to mention it in the article. The fact that demographic data wasn't available for 3/4 of the respondents should give that thought a pause. Academics don't work for the truth, but for publications and citations. It's the main reason so many studies in psychology are simply false.