Judgments of Behavioral Frequencies: Memory Search and Retrieval Strategies

Surveys in marketing often employ questions that seek to determine the frequency with which respondents engage in different kinds of behavior. These behaviors range from very frequent ones (such as the number of times a day that one consumes coffee) to somewhat frequent ones (such as the number of times that one went shopping in the last month) to infrequent ones (such as the number of times that one has purchased a car in the last 5 years). A study by Blair and Burton (1987) indicated that the cognitive processes that respondents use vary depending on the relative frequency of the event. In other words, although it is easy to recall and count every instance for an infrequent behavior, it becomes more difficult to do so for a frequent behavior. Many researchers now maintain that in a survey situation in which respondents are asked a question relating to the frequency of a fairly frequent, nonsalient behavior, they do not do a straightforward recall and count of every occurrence of the target behavior. Instead, they provide an estimate based on various inference strategies (Blair & Burton, 1987; L. Ross, 1984; Schwarz, 1990a; Strube, 1987).