QUESTION-ORDER EFFECTS ON THE DETERMINANTS OF SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING

Part-whole combinations of questions are believed to be particularlyvulnerable to question-order effects. A split-ballot experimentwas used in a telephone survey to vary the order of a generalwell-being question and a set of questions on well-being ineight specific life domains. A number of order effects on multipleregression parameters were found for married respondents; noorder effects were found for unmarried persons, however. Theseresults show that conclusions about the relative importanceof specific life domains for general well-being and conclusionsabout the effects of unmeasured variables can be substantiallyaffected by the order of the general and specific items. Severalexplanations for the order effects are discussed.