CAPTURING AND CREATING PUBLIC-OPINION IN SURVEY-RESEARCH

Although consumer researchers often assume that survey responses refle ct true beliefs, attitudes, and intentions, most recent research in so cial judgment and behavioral decision making suggests that people ofte n construct answers to survey questions on the basis of their response s to earlier items. A framework proposed by Feldman and Lynch suggests that answers are most likely to be constructed when the respondent do es not have other, more diagnostic inputs accessible in memory. Two fi eld experiments conducted during the 1988 and 1992 presidential electi ons support this model. In experiment 1, when a respondent had voted f or one of the candidates in the primary, voting intention was not base d on earlier survey answers; when a respondent had not voted for these candidates in the primary, voting intention appeared to be constructe d. Regardless of primary voting behavior, all respondents appeared to construct issue opinions. The effect of earlier answers on issue opini ons decreased as the election neared, consistent with the idea that kn owledge about the issues increased with time. In experiment 2, placing questions tapping primary voting behavior first affected responses to questions about specific issue opinions, with resulting carryover to a later measure of voting intention. We discuss the implications of th ese results for consumer judgment processes and for measurement of con sumers' attitudes and intentions.