Abstract
Standardized surveys are used in many contexts to measure people’s opinions and attitudes. Although it is widely assumed that survey answers represent the ‘true values’ of the concepts measured, a large body of research has shown that seemingly irrelevant question characteristics influence how respondents report their attitudes. The research presented
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in this dissertation revolved around on one of these characteristics: whether the question is worded positively (This is an interesting book. Yes/No.) or negatively (This is an uninteresting book. Yes/No.). A first aim of the current dissertation was to investigate whether the choice for a positive or a negative wording systematically affects survey answers. Results show that there is an effect of question polarity on survey answers: irrespective of the word pair used, the answering scale offered, and the question asked, respondents are more likely to answer no or disagree to negative questions than to answer yes or agree to equivalent positive ones. Hence, respondents express their opinions more positively when the question is worded negatively (Chapter 2, 4, 5). Even though the choice for a positive or a negative wording was shown to affect survey answers systematically, we also observed variation between word pairs in the size of the effect. A second aim of the current dissertation was to explain this variation using a semantic classification of antonyms in absolute versus relative types (Kennedy & McNally 2005). Unfortunately, we were unable to explain variation between word pairs using this typology (Chapter 3). The third and last aim of the current dissertation was to explain cognitively why respondents, in general, answer positive and negative attitude questions differently. To do so, we used eye-tracking as a method to measure the temporal aspects of the question-answering process for positive versus negative questions. In order to relate the observed time differences to cognitive processes of question answering (Tourangeau, Rips & Rasinski 2000), we used a combination of theoretical insights about the question-answering process, experimental designs in which that knowledge was used, and newly designed eye-tracking measures that are relevant for these specific purposes. With this combination of strategies we were able to demonstrate that positive and negative questions cause similar information to be retrieved from memory and a similar attitude to be formed. Therefore, contrastive questions measure the same underlying attitude, and hence, are equally valid. Wording effects arise only late in the question-answering process, when respondents translate their own opinion into the response options to the question. This is due to the fact that respondents assign a meaning to the response options that is not absolute, but relative to the polarity of the evaluative term used in the question. Hence, although response options like yes and no are straight opposites, the meaning of yes in answer to a positive question is not the same as the meaning of no in answer to a negative question. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for survey theory and suvey practice, as well as the methodological implications about the use of eye-tracking for measuring cognitive processes
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