Abstract
This paper analyzes whether respondents’ attitudes toward surveys explain their susceptibility to item nonresponse. In contrast to previous studies, the decision to refuse to provide income information, not to answer other questions and the probability of ‘don’t know’ responses is tested separately. Furthermore, the interviewers’ overall judgments of response willingness was included as well. Respondents with a positive and cognitively accessible attitude toward surveys were expected to adopt a cooperative orientation and were thus deemed more likely to answer difficult as well as sensitive questions. Attitudes were measured with a 16-item instrument and the response latencies were used as an indicator for attitude accessibility. We found that respondents with more favorable evaluations of surveys had lower values on all kinds of nonresponse indicators. Except for the strong effect on the prevalence of ‘don’t knows’, survey attitudes were increasingly more predictive for all other aspects of nonresponse when these attitude answers were faster and thus cognitively more accessible. This accessibility, and thus how relevant survey attitudes are for nonresponse, was found to increase with the subjects’ exposure to surveys in the past.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
J. A. Bargh (1997) The Automaticity of Everyday Life Erlbaum Mahwah, N.J.
J. N. Bassili (1993) ArticleTitleResponse latency versus certainty as indexes of the strength of voting intentions in a CATI survey Public Opinion Quarterly 57 54–61 Occurrence Handle10.1086/269354
J. N. Bassili (1995) ArticleTitleResponse latency and the accessibility of voting intentions: What contributes to accessibility and how it affects vote choice Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21 686–695
J. N. Bassili D. A. Bors (1997) ArticleTitleUsing response-latency to increase lead time in election forecasting Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 29 231–238
P. Beatty D. Herrmann (2002) To answer or not to answer: Decision processes related to survey item nonresponse R. M. Groves D. A. Dillman J. L. Eltinge R. J. A. Little (Eds) Survey Nonresponse John Wiley & Sons New York
R. Bell (1984) ArticleTitleItem nonresponse in telephone surveys: an analysis of who fails to report income Social Science Quarterly 65 207–215
J. M. Converse (1976) ArticleTitlePredicting No Opinon in the Polls Public Opinion Quarterly 40 515–530 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268337
A. J. Copas V. T. Farewell (1998) ArticleTitleDealing with non-ignorable non-response by using an “enthusiasm-to-respond” variable Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 161 385–396
M. Davern T. H. Rockwood R. Sherrod S. Campbell (2003) ArticleTitlePrepaid monetary incentives and data quality in face-to-face interviews. Data From the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation Incentive Experiment Public Opinion Quarterly 67 139–147
E. D. Leeuw Particlede J. Hox M. Huisman (2003) ArticleTitlePrevention and treatment of item nonresponse Journal of Official Statistics 19 153–176
J. R. Dickinson E. Kirzner (1985) ArticleTitleQuestionnaire item omission as a function of within-group question position Journal of Business Research 13 71–75 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0148-2963(85)90015-3
J. Doll I. Ajzen (1992) ArticleTitleAccessibility and stability of predictors in the theory of planned behavior Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63 754–765 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0022-3514.63.5.754
B. Erbslöh A. Koch (1988) ArticleTitleDie Non-Response-Studie zum Allbus 1986: Problemstellung, Design, erste Ergebnisse ZUMA-Nachrichten 22 29–44
Esser, H. (2001). Soziologie. Spezielle Grundlagen. Band 6: Sinn und Kultur. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus.
R. H. Fazio (1990) Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The mode model as an integrative framework M. P. Zanna (Eds) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Academic Press San Diego
R. H. Fazio C. J. Williams (1986) ArticleTitleAttitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude–perception and attitude-behavior relations: An investigation of the 1984 presidential election Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 505–514 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0022-3514.51.3.505
R. H. Fazio M. C. Powell C. J. Williams (1989) ArticleTitleThe role of attitude accessibility in the attitude-to-behavior process Journal of Consumer Research 16 280–288 Occurrence Handle10.1086/209214
R. Ferber (1966) ArticleTitleItem nonresponse in a consumer survey Public Opinion Quarterly 30 399–415 Occurrence Handle10.1086/267432
J. F. Fletcher (2000) ArticleTitleTwo timing: Politics and response latencies in a bilingual survey Political Psychology 21 27–55 Occurrence Handle10.1111/0162-895X.00176
Forsa (2000) ArticleTitleDie Akzeptanz von Umfragen in Deutschland Anfang 2000 Context 7 2–13
J. D. Francis L. Busch (1975) ArticleTitleWhat we now know about “I Don’t Knows” Public Opinion Quarterly 39 207–218 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268217
J. Goyder (1986) ArticleTitleSurveys on surveys: Limitations and potentialities Public Opinion Quarterly 50 27–41 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268957
R. M. Groves D. A. Dillman J. L. Eltinge R. J. A. Little (2002) Survey Nonresponse John Wiley & Sons New York
J. Jaccard C. Radecki T. Wilson P. Dittus (1995) Methods for Identifying Consequential Beliefs: Implications for Understanding Attitude Strength R. E. Petty J. A. Krosnick (Eds) Attitude Strength Erlbaum Mahwah, N.J.
W. H. Jones (1979) ArticleTitleGeneralizing mail survey inducement methods: Population interactions with anonymity and sponsorship Public Opinion Quarterly 43 102–111 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268495
F. Kokkinaki P. Lunt (1997) ArticleTitleThe relationship between involvement, attitude accessibility and attitude-behaviour consistency British Journal of Social Psychology 36 497–509
S. J. Kraus (1995) ArticleTitleAttitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21 58–75
J. A. Krosnick (1991) ArticleTitleResponse strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of attitude measures in surveys Applied Cognitive Psychology 5 213–236
J. H. Leigh C. R. Martin SuffixJr. (1987) ArticleTitle“Don’t Know” Item nonresponse in a telephone survey: Effects of question form and respondent characteristics Journal of Marketing Research 24 418–424
L. Lillard J. P. Smith F. Welch (1986) ArticleTitleWhat do we really know about wages? The importance of nonreporting and census imputation The Journal of Political Economy 94 489–506 Occurrence Handle10.1086/261386
S. Long J. Freese (2003) Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata Stata Press College Station
S. W. McDaniel P. Verille C. S. Madden (1985) ArticleTitleThe threats to marketing research: An empirical reappraisal Journal of Marketing Research 21 74–80
D. C. Park (1999) Cognitive aging, processing resources, and self-report N. Schwarz D. C. Park B. Knäuper S. Sudman (Eds) Cognition, Aging, and Self-Reports Psychology Press Philadelphia, PA
R. E. Petty J. A. Krosnick (1995) Attitude Strength. Antecedents and Consequences Erlbaum Mahwah, N.J.
J. Pickery G. Loosveldt (1998) ArticleTitleThe impact of respondent and interviewer characteristics on the number of “No Opinion” answers: A multilevel model for count data Quality & Quantity 32 31–45
J. Pickery G. Loosveldt (2004) ArticleTitleA simultaneous analysis of interviewer effects on various data quality indicators with identification of exceptional interviewers Journal of Official Statistics 20 77–89
G. S. Poe I. Seeman J. McLaughlin E. Mehl M. Dietz (1988) ArticleTitle“Don’t Know” boxes in factual questions in a mail questionnaire Public Opinion Quarterly 52 212–222 Occurrence Handle10.1086/269095
S. G. Rogelberg G. G. Fisher D. C. Maynard M. D. Hakel M. Horvath (2001) ArticleTitleAttitudes toward surveys: Development of a measure and its relationship to respondent behavior Organizational Research Methods 4 3–25
S. Schleifer (1986) ArticleTitleTrends in attitudes toward and participation in survey research Public Opinion Quarterly 50 17–26 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268956
J.-P. Schräpler (2002) Respondent Behavior in Panel Studies – A Case Study for Income- Nonresponse by Means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) German Institute for Economic Research DIW Berlin
H. Schuman S. Presser (1980) ArticleTitlePublic opinion and public ignorance: The fine line between attitudes and nonattitudes The American Journal of Sociology 85 1214–1225 Occurrence Handle10.1086/227131
Sharp, L. M. (1981). Respondent burden: A first measurement effort. In: H. Baier, H. M. Kepplinger & K. Reumann (eds.), Öffentliche Meinung und sozialer Wandel. Westdeutscher Verlag.
T. Sheets A. Radlinski J. Kohne G. A. Brunner (1974) ArticleTitleDeceived respondents: Once bitten, twice shy Public Opinion Quarterly 38 261–263 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268157
P. J. Shoemaker M. Eichholz E. A. Skewes (2002) ArticleTitleItem nonresponse: Distinguishing between don’t know and refuse International Journal of Public Opinion Research 14 193–201 Occurrence Handle10.1093/ijpor/14.2.193
E. Singer J. Hoewyk Particlevan M. P. Maher (1998) ArticleTitleDoes the payment of incentives create expectation effects? Public Opinion Quarterly 62 152–164
E. Singer J. Hoewyk Particlevan M. P. Maher (2000) ArticleTitleExperiments with incentives for survey participation in telephone surveys Public Opinion Quarterly 64 171–188
B. Six T. Eckes (1996) ArticleTitleMetaanalysen in der Einstellungs-Verhaltens-Forschung Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie 27 7–17
T. W. Smith (1982) ArticleTitleEducated don’t knows: An analysis of the relationship between education and item nonresponse Political Methodology 8 47–57
Smith, T. W. (1991). An Analysis of Missing Income Information on the General Social Surveys. University of Chicago: GSS Methodological Report.
T. A. B. Snijders R. J. Bosker (1999) Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modeling Sage London
A. L. Stinchcombe C. Jones P. Sheatsley (1981) ArticleTitleNonresponse bias for attitude questions Public Opinion Quarterly 45 359–375 Occurrence Handle10.1086/268670
V. Stocké (2004) ArticleTitleEntstehungsbedingungen von Antwortverzerrungen durch soziale Erwünschtheit. Ein Vergleich der Prognosen der Rational-Choice Theorie und des Modells der Frame-Selektion Zeitschrift für Soziologie 33 303–320
V. Stocké B. Langfeldt (2004) ArticleTitleEffects of survey experience on respondents’ attitudes towards Surveys Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique 81 5–32
M. Wagner A. Motel (1996) ArticleTitleDie Qualität der Einkommensmessung bei alten Menschen Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 48 493–512
D. K. Willimack H. Schuman B.-E. Pennell J. M. Lepkowski (1995) ArticleTitleEffects of a prepaid nonmonetary incentive on response rates and response quality in a face-to-face Survey Public Opinion Quarterly 59 78–92 Occurrence Handle10.1086/269459
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stocké, V. Attitudes Toward Surveys, Attitude Accessibility and the Effect on Respondents’ Susceptibility to Nonresponse. Qual Quant 40, 259–288 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-005-6105-z
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-005-6105-z