| Abstract: | Reviews the book "Conflict and mood," by Patricia Kendall (see record 1955-02101-000). The studies reported in this small, lithoprinted volume are devoted to identifying factors leading to shift in responses to repeated attitude survey questionnaires and interviews. Conflict and mood were hypothesized as prime factors specifically related to response instability. From a methodological viewpoint, these studies are important in giving specification to factors that should be controlled in questionnaire construction. Respondent conflict and mood were the major variables studied. This reviewer however, would seriously question if one of the other factors was not indeed affecting the experimental responses analyzed in terms of conflict and mood. This other factor is the degree of respondent interest and concern. The author points out that this is a dimension of increasingly recognizable importance in surveys and that lack of interest leads to perfunctory, unstable responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
