Intervening Responses Between Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys

The study reported here was designed to investigate the responses which intervene between asking an attitude question and receiving the respondent's answer. The authors tested the effects of methodological and instrumental variables as well as the effect of asking respondents to report their reasons for holding the attitude reported. At the time this article was written, James Carper was a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at Yale University and Leonard Doob was Professor of Psychology at the same university. Mr. Carper is now a research associate at the University of Illinois.