 Narratives of Response Error From Cognitive Interviews of Survey Questions About Normative BehaviorPhilip S. Brenner Sociological Methods & Research, 2017, vol. 46, issue 3, 540-564 Abstract: That rates of normative behaviors produced by sample surveys are higher than actual behavior warrants is well evidenced in the research literature. Less well understood is the source of this error. Twenty-five cognitive interviews were conducted to probe responses to a set of common, conventional survey questions about one such normative behavior: religious service attendance. Answers to the survey questions and cognitive probes are compared both quantitatively and qualitatively. Half of the respondents amended their answer during cognitive probing, all amendments indicating a lower rate of attendance than originally reported, yielding a statistically significant reduction in reported attendance. Narrative responses shed light onto the source of bias, as respondents pragmatically interpreted the survey question to allow themselves to include other types of religious behavior, to report on a more religious past, and discount current constraints on their religious behavior, in order to report aspirational or normative religious identities. Keywords: response error; measurement error; cognitive interviewing; social desirability bias; religion; church attendance; identity (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:46:y:2017:i:3:p:540-564 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Sociological Methods & Research |
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