Why the second question on a survey is the real one
The opening question sets a frame. Every answer that follows is given inside it, and the respondent cannot see the frame because they are standing in it.
Intuition test — answer before you read on
Asking about health before life satisfaction raises the life-satisfaction score. Why?
A survey opens by asking how satisfied you are with your health. The next question asks how satisfied you are with your life. Respondents give a higher life-satisfaction score than those who receive the life question first, without the health question preceding it.
What everyone sees
Each question looks independent. The respondent treats them as separate items on a list and answers each on its own merits. The idea that the first answer changed the meaning of the second does not occur, because the questions are about different things.
What is actually happening
Strack, Martin and Schwarz demonstrated this exact effect: placing the health question before the life question raised the correlation between the two and shifted the life-satisfaction score. Schwarz and Strack showed that preceding questions provide a frame that respondents use to interpret subsequent ones. Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski described the survey response process as one in which context — including question order — determines how subsequent questions are understood and answered. The first question is not just a question; it is the lens for the second.
Why it stays hidden
The framing hides because the respondent experiences themselves as answering honestly. They are: their answer to the second question is genuine given the frame the first one installed. The frame is invisible because it was accepted as a question rather than as an instruction, and nobody reads a question as an instruction.
The first question is not a question. It is the frame in which the second question will be understood.
The first question is not a question. It is the frame in which the second question will be understood.
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The first question is not a question. It is the frame in which the second question will be understood.
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Sources & further reading 3
- Strack, Martin & Schwarz, "Priming and Communication: Social Determinants of Information Use in Judgments of Life Satisfaction", European Journal of Social Psychology, 1988
- Schwarz & Strack, "Reports of Subjective Well-Being: Judgmental Processes and Their Methodological Implications", 1999
- Tourangeau, Rips & Rasinski, "The Psychology of Survey Response", 2000
Cross-references
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