Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Structured Interviewing I: Questionnaires 295
what you call them, time budgets and diaries are still methods for collecting
self-reports of behavior. They may be less inaccurate than simply asking people
to tell you what they did over the past day or week, but they are not perfect.
A lot of work remains to be done on testing the accuracy of activity diaries
against data from direct observation. In chapter 15, we’ll look at methods for
direct observation and measurement of behavior.
Randomized Response
Randomized response is a technique for estimating the amount of some
socially negative behavior in a population—things like shoplifting, extramarital
sex, child abuse, being hospitalized for emotional problems, and so on. The
technique was introduced by Warner in 1965 and is particularly well described
by Williams (1978:73). It is a simple, fun, and interesting tool. Here’s how it
works.
First, you formulate two questions, A and B, that can be answered ‘‘yes’’
or ‘‘no.’’ One question, A, is the question of interest (say, ‘‘Have you ever
shoplifted?’’) The possible answers to this question (either ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’) do
not have known probabilities of occurring. That is what you want to find out.
The other question, B, must be innocuous and the possible answers (again
‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’) must have known probabilities of occurring. For example, if
you ask a someone to toss a fair coin and ask, ‘‘Did you toss a heads?’’ then
the probability that they answer ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ is 50%. If the chances of being
born in any given month were equal, then you could ask respondents: ‘‘Were
you born between April 1st and June 1st?’’ and the probability of getting a
‘‘yes’’ would be 25%. Unfortunately, births are seasonal, so the coin-toss
question is preferable.
Let’s assume you use the coin toss for question B. You ask someone to toss
the coin and to note the result without letting you see it. Next, have them pick
a card, from a deck of 10 cards, where each card is marked with a single integer
from 1 to 10. The respondent does not tell you what number he or she
picked, either. The secrecy associated with this procedure makes people feel
secure about answering question A (the sensitive question) truthfully.
Next, hand the respondent a card with the two questions, marked A and B,
written out. Tell them that if they picked a number between one and four from
the deck of 10 cards, they should answer question A. If they picked a number
between five and 10, they should answer question B.
That’s all there is to it. You now have the following: (1) Each respondent
knows they answered ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ and which question they answered; and
(2) You know only that a respondent said ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ but not which question,
A or B, was being answered.