The Theory and Evaluation of Anchoring Effect in Visually Administered Extremely Long Response Lists
Abstract:
Numerous studies (Payne 1971; Krosnick and Alwin 1987; Ayidiya and McClendon 1990; Schwarz, Hippler, and Noelle-Neumann 1992; Malhotra 2009; Malhotra 2008) have examined response order effects in visually administered questionnaires. A number of theories have also been proposed to explain this effect, with the most popular one being the theory of satisficing (Krosnick and Alwin 1987; Krosnick 1991). According to this theory, when response alternatives are presented visually, respondents begin at the top of the list and consider each alternative individually, all while establishing a cognitive framework for evaluating later response alternatives. Thus, there is a bias toward selecting earlier response alternatives in such lists. In this paper, I argue that, for extremely long response lists (i.e., one that spans an entire page in a mail survey), this heuristic approach as proposed by the satisficing theory may not be applicable and that the sheer nature of the task at hand may in fact dictate a different approach. Under these circumstances, respondents are likely to follow a search heuristic that involves the use of alphabetization and memory in order to select response alternatives, and therefore, no bias towards earlier items in the list will occur. In this study, I propose a theory of response order effects that does not produce primacy effects proposed by the theory of satisficing. I draw data from multiple surveys to test my predictions made by the theory about the expected nature of response order effect. I discuss the findings from the study and conclude with recommendations for future research.
Recommended Citation:
Rao, K. (2010). The Theory and Evaluation of Anchoring Effect in Visually Administered Extremely Long Response Lists. Paper presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago.
Attached Documents:
- AAPOR 2010 Program (see page #73 for the mention)
- For a copy of this presentation, please send me a comment with your email address in the box below.