Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

248 Chapter 9
really happened two months ago. The latter error is called forward telescoping
(backward telescoping is rare).
Here are four things you can do to increase the accuracy of self-reported
behavior.
1. Cued recall. In cued recall, people either consult records to jog their memories
or you ask them questions that cue them about specific behaviors. For example,
if you’re collecting life histories, college transcripts will help people remember
events and people from their time at school. Credit card statements and longdistance
phone bills help people retrace their steps and remember events, places,
and people they met along the way. Still . . . Horn (1960) asked people to report
their bank balance. Of those who did not consult their bankbooks, just 31%
reported correctly. But those who consulted their records didn’t do that much
better. Only 47% reported correctly (reported in Bradburn 1983:309).
Event calendars are particularly useful in societies where there are no written
records. Leslie et al. (1999:375–378), for example, developed an event calendar
for the Ngisonyoka section of the South Turkana pastoralists in northwestern
Kenya. The Turkana name their seasons rather than their years. Based on many
interviews between 1983 and 1984, Leslie et al. were able to build up a list of
143 major events associated with seasons between 1905 and 1992. Events
include things like ‘‘no hump’’ in 1961 (it was so dry that the camels’ humps
shrank), ‘‘bulls’’ in 1942 (when their bulls were taken to pay a poll tax), and
‘‘rescue’’ in 1978 (when rains came). This painstaking work has made it possible
for many researchers to gather demographic and other life history data from the
Ngisonyoka Turkana. (For more on event calendars in life histories, see Freedman
et al. 1988, Kessler and Wethington 1991, Caspi et al. 1996, and Belli 1998.)
Brewer and Garrett (2001) found that five kinds of questions can dramatically
increase the recall of sex partners and drug injection partners. They gave people
alphabetic cues, location cues, network cues, role cues, and timeline cues. After
asking people to list their sex partners and/or drug injection partners, they asked
them the following questions:
1. Alphabetic cues. ‘‘I am going to go through the letters of the alphabet one at
a time. As I say each letter, think of all the people you know whose name
begins with that letter. The names could be first names, nicknames, or last
names. Let me know if any of these are people you had sex/injected drugs
with in the last year but might not have mentioned earlier.’’
2. Location cues. ‘‘I have here a list of different kinds of locations or places
where people have sex/inject drugs with other people or meet people who they
later have sex/inject drugs with. As I say each location, think of all of the
times you have had sex/injected drugs there, or met people there in the last
year. Focus on all the people you interacted with at these locations. Let me
know if any of these are people you had sex/injected drugs with but might not
have mentioned earlier.’’
3. Network cues. ‘‘I am going to read back again the list of people you mentioned