Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

110 ASKING QUESTIONS
them less threatening. There have been, however, few controlled
experiments to test the effectiveness of these loading procedures, so
we are unable to confidently attest to their effectiveness. Nevertheless,
we discuss them here since they have some intuitive appeal.
For undesirable behavior, the following loading techniques have
been used:
1. Use the “everybody does it” approach. The introduction to the
question indicates that the behavior is very common, so as to reduce
the threat of reporting it. For example, “Even the calmest
parents get angry at their children some of the time. Did your
child(ren) do anything in the past seven days, since (date), to make
you, yourself, angry?” Another version is given in the introduction
to Question 2 in Figure 3.8: “The most popular alcoholic beverage
in the country is beer.” Of course, the “everybody does it” statement
must appear to be reasonable to the respondent. If not, such as in
the Barton example—“As you know, many people have been
killing their wives these days”—the statement will be ineffective
and may actually backfire and increase threat.
2. Assume the behavior, and ask about frequencies or other details.
It is usually undesirable to assume that a person is doing something,
since a question making that assumption leads to overreporting of
behavior. For behavior that is underreported, however, this may be
what is needed. For example, a closed question, “How many cigarettes
do you smoke each day?” with “None” as a category at the top
and with answers ranging from one to forty or more, may reduce the
threat of reporting smoking.
For financial questions, assuming the presence of assets and asking
about details improves reporting. Thus, instead of asking “Do
you or members of this household have any savings accounts?” the
question is phrased as follows: “Turning to savings accounts—that
is, accounts in banks, savings and loan associations, and credit
unions—are there separate accounts for different family members
or do you have different accounts in various places under the same