Suchergebnisse

Sources of invalidity in survey res are discussed, with particular attention given to response set biases-the tendency to gamble, agreement response set, & acquiescence response set. Pol'al soc'ization res has revealed that Amer children, almost universally, evaluate nearly all pol'al objects in highly positive terms. An experiment is reported which is designed to test the effect of response sets upon the validity of children's responses to fixed-alternative survey questions. 289 children (grades 4-8) were asked to evaluate more or less unfamiliar pol'al objects (Harold Wilson, Spiro Agnew, Speaker of the House, & 'Thomas Walker') for the purpose of observing the effects of response sets when children are cognitively unready to act as R's. Results show that, when uncertain about the content of the item, children are likely to (1) 'gamble,' (2) 'agree' (extracting a positive or negative cue when one is included in the question), & (3) give a positive evaluation (acquiesce) when no cue is included in the item. The responses of cognitively unready children are shown not to be random in origin. This tendency on the part of children to express positive att's toward unfamiliar pol'al objects makes fixed-alternative questions invalid if the child-R is cognitively unready to respond to the question. Since cognitive deficiency is associated with childhood, res'ers in pol'al soc'ization are cautioned to scrutinize the cognitive dimension before proceeding to infer the existence of att's from the responses to questionaire items which assume some cognitive substance. AA.