Response Order Effects in Dichotomous Categorical Questions Presented Orally: The Impact of Question and Respondent Attributes

Using data from 548 experiments in telephone surveys conductedby the Gallup Organization, we explored how attributes of questionsand respondents moderate response order effects in dichotomouscategorical questions. These effects were predominantly recencyeffects and occurred most in questions that were more difficultto comprehend (especially among respondents with the least education),with response choices that were more difficult to comprehend(because they were complete sentences instead of words or phrasesand because they were not mutually exclusive), and that wereasked after many prior questions. Recency effects were alsomore common in questions that explicitly or implicitly encouragedrespondents to wait until they had heard all the answer choicesbefore formulating a judgment than in questions that inducedrespondents to begin formulating a judgment before all the answerchoices had been read (especially among the least educated respondents).A study of interviewer behavior revealed patterns of pausingbetween and within sentences that help to explain why some typesof questions are especially prone to recency effects and othersare not.     

Contract design and insurance fraud: an experimental investigation

This paper experimentally examines the impact of contract design on insurance fraud. We test how fraud behavior varies for insurance contracts with full coverage, a straight deductible or claim-dependent premiums (bonus-malus contracts), in a setup where rational and selfish individuals have an incentive to always claim the maximum possible indemnity. We find a substantial impact of contractual arrangements: Deductible contracts lead to a greater extent to claim build-up than full coverage contracts. In contrast, bonus-malus contracts that entail the same net gains from fraud as deductible contracts do not increase claim build-up. Thus, our results indicate that bonus-malus contracts may be superior to deductible contracts for behavioral reasons.     

Eye-Tracking Data: New Insights on Response Order Effects and Other Cognitive Shortcuts in Survey Responding

Survey researchers since Cannell have worried that respondents may take various shortcuts to reduce the effort needed to complete a survey. The evidence for such shortcuts is often indirect. For instance, preferences for earlier versus later response options have been interpreted as evidence that respondents do not read beyond the first few options. This is really only a hypothesis, however, that is not supported by direct evidence regarding the allocation of respondent attention. In the current study, we used a new method to more directly observe what respondents do and do not look at by recording their eye movements while they answered questions in a Web survey. The eye-tracking data indicate that respondents do in fact spend more time looking at the first few options in a list of response options than those at the end of the list; this helps explain their tendency to select the options presented first regardless of their content. In addition, the eye-tracking data reveal that respondents are reluctant to invest effort in reading definitions of survey concepts that are only a mouse click away or paying attention to initially hidden response options. It is clear from the eye-tracking data that some respondents are more prone to these and other cognitive shortcuts than others, providing relatively direct evidence for what had been suspected based on more conventional measures.     

The influence of stimulus ambiguity on category and attitude formation

Existing research on categorical ambiguity has mostly examined how consumers assimilate new products into familiar product categories. Extending these findings, this research investigates whether and under what circumstances consumers either create new mental categories for hybrid products or integrate them into existing categories. Specifically, we propose that this effect is influenced by the degree of product ambiguity and the availability of a new category label. We find that as ambiguity increases, the probability of new category creation augments, but product evaluation deteriorates. However, we also find that a new category label can reduce the effects of ambiguity and can improve product evaluation. Thus, the results fill the existing gap in research on the cognitive integration of hybrid products and shed light on how managers may position these products successfully.     

A fast exact algorithm for the problem of optimum cooperation and the structure of its solutions

Given a graph G=(V,E) with edge weights w _e ∈ℝ, the optimum cooperation problem consists in determining a partition of the graph that maximizes the sum of weights of the edges with nodes in the same class plus the number of the classes of the partition. The problem is also known in the literature as the optimum attack problem in networks. Furthermore, a relevant physics application exists.     

Experiments in Producing Nonresponse Bias

While nonresponse rates in household surveys are increasingin most industrialized nations, the increasing rates do notalways produce nonresponse bias in survey estimates. The linkagebetween nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias arises from thepresence of a covariance between response propensity and thesurvey variables of interest. To understand the covariance term,researchers must think about the common influences on responsepropensity and the survey variable. Three variables appear tobe especially relevant in this regard: interest in the surveytopic, reactions to the survey sponsor, and the use of incentives.A set of randomized experiments tests whether those likely tobe interested in the stated survey topic participate at higherrates and whether nonresponse bias on estimates involving variablescentral to the survey topic is affected by this. The experimentsalso test whether incentives disproportionately increase theparticipation of those less interested in the topic. The experimentsshow mixed results in support of these key hypotheses.     

Visual Context Effects in Web Surveys

There are many examples of context effects in survey measurement.Responses to survey questions can be shaped by the order ofquestions, the format of response options, the broader surveyenvironment, and so on. For Web surveys, the inclusion of visualimages is a trivial design issue, but may have consequencesfor the responses obtained because they change the visual context.We report a series of experiments examining how responses maybe affected by the use of images in Web surveys. Specifically,we examine the effect that pictures of a healthy woman exercisingversus a sick woman in a hospital bed have on self-rated health.We replicated the experiments in three different surveys, varyingsuch factors as the size and placement of the image and thelocation of the question within the questionnaire. In general,we find that when exposed to a picture of a fit woman, respondentsconsistently rate their own health lower than when exposed toa picture of a sick woman.     

The organization of project evaluation under competition

This article examines the optimal organizational form of project evaluation under competition. The evaluations are carried out by two fallible screening units that sequentially assess projects. Screening can be organized as a hierarchy or a polyarchy. We show that as competitive pressure rises, the polyarchy becomes less attractive. Therefore, different organizational forms might be found in different industries depending on the degree of competition. In addition, we examine endogenous screening rules under competition: For symmetric situations, we show that polyarchies will employ higher decision thresholds compared to hierarchies. Nonetheless, as in the case of exogenous screening rules, the hierarchy becomes more attractive the higher the degree of competition.

The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect

We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ORE” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with Caucasian and African faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity (Caucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity (African). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the Caucasian or the African faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE.