Order Effects in Complex and Simple Tasks

Bibliographic Data

ID6370477
AuthorsN Malhotra (0000-0003-4477-6049)
Year2009
Volume73
Issue1
Pages180-198
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePublic Opinion Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-362X • E-ISSN: 1537-5331
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/poq/nfp008
OpenAlexW2159094318
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited21

There is strong evidence that the order in which response options are presented in surveys significantly affects the answers that respondents provide. According to the theory of survey satisficing, the severity of order effects should increase with task difficulty. However, the tasks provided to respondents in existing studies of response-order effects are generally very simple, making it difficult to evaluate the satis- ficing hypothesis. Further, evidence from cognitive psychology suggests a completely different mechanism: people are more motivated to persist in completing tasks when they are intricate, challenging, and enriching. I designed survey experiments administered over the Internet consisting of two types of tasks: (1) a complex task in which respondents were asked to rank seven public officials in order of how much they should be blamed for the property damage and loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina in the city of New Orleans; and (2) a series of simple tasks in which respon- dents answered items with ordinal response choices on rating scales. I found almost no order effects in the complex task among all educational groups. Conversely, I found significant and substantial order effects in the simple tasks, particularly among low-education respondents. These results suggest that theories of survey satisficing may simplify matters by assuming that satisficing monotonically increases with task difficulty. Moreover, my findings have important implications for questionnaire design, underscoring the importance of randomizing response options

Cognitive psychology · Economics · Epistemology · Order (exchange · Simple (philosophy · Computer Science · Economic and Environmental Valuation · Psychology · Survey Methodology and Nonresponse · Survey Sampling and Estimation Techniques · Philosophy

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