The psychology of survey response
"This book examines the complex psychological processes involved in answering different types of survey questions. It proposes a theory about how respondents answer questions in surveys, reviews the relevant psychological and survey literatures, and traces out the implications of the theories and findings for survey practice." "The Psychology of Survey Response will appeal to (1) social psychologists, political scientists, and others who study public opinion or who use data from public opinion surveys; (2) cognitive psychologists and other researchers who are interested in everyday memory and judgment processes; and (3) survey researchers, methodologists, and statisticians who are involved in designing and carrying out surveys."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2000
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2000
textbook
xiii, 401 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780521572460, 9780521576291, 0521572460, 0521576296
41488787
Earlier theories of the response process
A proposed model of the response process
Other recent proposals: high road/low road theories
Applications of the model
Implications of the model
Respondents' understanding of survey questions
What is a question?
Two views of comprehension: immediate understanding versus interpretation
Syntactic difficulties in question wording
Semantic effects: presupposition, unfamiliarity, and vagueness
Survey pragmatics and its effects on comprehension
The role of memory in survey responding
Survey questions and memory for events
Organization of autobiographical memory
Factors affecting recall of autobiographical events
Answering questions about dates and durations
A typology of temporal questions
Cognitive processing of temporal questions
Indirect effects of time on survey responses
Factual judgments and numerical estimates
Cognitive studies of frequency
Studies of frequency estimation in surveys
Probability judgments
Attitude questions
The traditional view
Alternative paths to an answer
The belief-sampling model
Tests of the belief-sampling model
Attitude judgments and context effects
Forms of context effects
Mechanisms producing context effects
Variables affecting the size and direction of context effects
Serial position effects
Selecting a response: mapping judgments to survey answers
Open items and rounding
Rating scales and scale anchors
Unordered categories and satisficing