Paternalism Questionnaire Test

People who want to examine their views of authority, civic agency, and government protection can use the Paternalism Questionnaire Test as a focused self-reflection exercise. The paternalism questionnaire examines how respondents weigh law, leadership, responsibility, and official care. The resulting profile describes patterns across the four displayed dimensions, helping readers interpret their views without assigning them to a single overall orientation.

What This Assessment Explores

The questions examine how responsibility is divided between citizens and authorities. They cover respect for legal limits, perceived civic influence, government protection, and beliefs that national outcomes depend on powerful leaders. The questions address political paternalism by connecting legal attitudes with views of authority and civic influence.

The result uses four displayed scales:

• Attitudes Toward the Law (5-35) indicates respect for law or willingness to bypass it: Law-respecting (5-16), Mixed / situational (17-26), or Law-bypassing tendency (27-35).
• Abdication of Responsibility (5-35) indicates willingness to hand responsibility and freedoms to authorities: Low (5-14), Moderate (15-25), or High (26-35).
• Desire for Guardianship and Care (5-35) indicates preference for protective patronage and authority care: Low (5-15), Moderate (16-25), or High (26-35).
• Mystification of Authority (5-35) indicates whether leaders seem parental, omnipotent, or infallible: Low mystification (5-15), Moderate mystification (16-25), or High mystification (26-35).

Methodology and Evidence Base

Each statement uses a seven-point agreement response, ranging from strong disagreement to complete agreement, with a neutral or unsure midpoint. Responses are reported across four displayed dimensions, with each score interpreted through its corresponding bands. The labels describe patterns within this profile rather than fixed personality types.

Conceptually, the paternalism assessment is closest to work on political authority, dependence, and protective governance. Leontev (2016) links paternalistic attitudes with expectations of care and concentrated authority. Miasnikov and Rotmistrov (2014) address the measurement of political paternalism directly, while Hannikainen et al. (2017) report evidence connecting deterministic worldviews with approval of state paternalism. The questionnaire is conceptually consistent with these works, but the citations do not establish that it is an adaptation, translation, or validated reproduction of any one instrument.

This online questionnaire is a structured self-report profile. Answers may be shaped by current events, self-presentation, and self-awareness, so the bands are most useful for identifying patterns to reflect on rather than treating them as permanent characteristics.