SUBSEQUENT QUESTIONS MAY INFLUENCE ANSWERS TO PRECEDING QUESTIONS IN MAIL SURVEYS

Data of a mode experiment demonstrate that the emergence ofcontext effects may be independent of question order under mailsurvey conditions. Under telephone interview conditions, substantivelyrelated questions affected responses to the target questiononly when asked first. However, the same questions affectedresponses under mail survey conditions independent of whetherthey preceded or followed the target question.     

ASSIMILATION AND CONTRAST EFFECTS IN PART-WHOLE QUESTION SEQUENCES: A CONVERSATIONAL LOGIC ANALYSIS

A theoretical model of the emergence of assimilation and contrasteffects in part-whole question sequences is presented. Whenone specific question precedes a general question and the twoare not assigned to the same conversational context, respondentsuse the information primed by the specific question to formthe general judgment. This results in part-whole assimilationeffects. If both questions are perceived as belonging to gether,however, conversational norms of nonredundancy prohibit therepeated use of information that has already been provided inresponse to the specific question when making the general judgment.Accordingly, respondents interpret the general question to referto aspects other than the ones covered by the specific question.Contrast effects may emerge in that case under specified conditions.If several specific questions precede the general question,however, the general one is always interpreted as a requestfor a summary judgment. This results in assimilation effects,even under conditions that would foster contrast effects ifonly one specific question is asked. The model is supportedby experimental data and provides a coherent account of apparentlycontradictory findings previously reported in the survey literature.     

RATING SCALES NUMERIC VALUES MAY CHANGE THE MEANING OF SCALE LABELS

Three experiments indicate that the numeric values providedas part of a rating scale may influence respondents' interpretationof the endpoint labels. In experiment 1, a representative sampleof German adults rated their success in life along an 11-pointrating scale, with the endpoints labeled "not at all successful"and "extremely successful." When the numeric values ranged from0 ("not at all successful") to 10 ("extremely successful"),34 percent of the respondents endorsed values between 0 and5. However, only 13 percent endorsed formally equivalent valuesbetween –5 and 0, when the scale ranged from –5("not at all successful") to +5 ("extremely successful"). Experiment2 provided an extended conceptual replication of this finding,and experiment 3 demonstrates that recipients of a respondent'sreport draw different inferences from formally equivalent butnumerically different values. In combination, the findings indicatethat respondents use the numeric values to disambiguate themeaning of scale labels, resulting in different interpretationsand, accordingly, different subjective scale anchors.     

Response Scales: Effects of Category Range on Reported Behavior and Comparative Judgments

Effects of the range of response categories provided in a closedanswer format on behavioral reports and subsequent judgmentswere explored. Respondents reported their daily use of televisionalong a scale that either ranged from "up to a half hour" "tomore than two and a half hours" or ranged from "up to two anda half hours" to "more than four and a half hours." The formersubjects reported less use of television than the latter andestimated the average use of TV to be lower. Moreover, the formersubjects evaluated TV to be more important in their lives (Experiment1) and reported less satisfaction with the variety of theirleisure-time activities (Experiment 2). These results indicatethat subjects inferred the average amount of television watchingfrom the response alternatives provided them and used it asa standard of comparison in evaluating their behavior and itsimplications.     

Inner Speech as a Language: A Saussurean Inquiry

The idea that thinking is a form of talking to oneself was discussed in classical Greece, analyzed by the Medievals and treated as a central issue by the American pragmatists. But whether inner speech is a language unto itself, distinct from outer language, has not been determined. To this end I ask how Saussure's defining ideas about language apply to inner speech. I show that Saussure's ideas, while partly usable, are mainly a poor fit. Inner speech is a variety of language, or perhaps of dialect, with its own unique structure. Given that it is a unique window into human consciousness, I briefly discuss some of the research areas on which it sheds light.     

CLIMBING TO THE TOP? FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

This article operates at the interface of the literature on the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host countries and the literature on the determinants of institutional quality. We argue that FDI contributes to economic development by improving institutional quality in the host country. This proposition is tested within a large panel data set of 70 developing countries for the period 1981–2005. We show that FDI inflows have a positive and highly significant impact on property rights. Results are very robust and not affected by model specification, different control variables, or estimation technique. To our knowledge this is the first article to empirically test the FDI—property rights linkage. (JEL F23, O43, P48)     

ASKING COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS: THE IMPACT OF THE DIRECTION OF COMPARISON

Questions assessing comparative judgments are often phrasedas directed comparisons, that is, a stimulus A (subject) isto be compared to a stimulus B (referent); for example, "Istennis more exciting than soccer or less exciting?" Tversky'swork on judgment of similarity indicated that comparing A toB may result in different similarity judgments than comparingB to A. The four studies reported in this article extend thiswork from judgments of similarity to evaluative judgments ingeneral. The results demonstrate that the direction of comparisonelicited by the wording of the question can have a strong impacton the obtained results. In some instances, a reversal in thedirection of comparison (i.e., comparing A to B vs. B to A)resulted in a reversal of the ordinal ranking. Implicationsfor question wording are discussed.