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Culture and Response Behavior: An Overview of Cultural Mechanisms Explaining Survey Error

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Understanding Survey Methodology

Part of the book series: Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research ((FSSR,volume 4))

Abstract

Awareness that culture may influence survey response behavior has a long history. Early recognition that social surveys may be influenced by cultural processes dates back to the late 1940s when cross-national survey research studies were first fielded. During the ensuing decades, the rapid growth and development of social survey methodologies, coupled with an increasingly globalized world, and expanding opportunities for cross-national and multi-ethnic investigations, created awareness of the importance of understanding differences between communities and societies and how these differences can influence data collection and survey errors. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of three of the more well-known frameworks for conceptualizing cultural values and orientations (i.e., Hofstede’s cultural orientations; Inglehart’s national values, and Schwartz’s universal values), and then present the available evidence that links these various cultural processes with the total survey error framework through selected survey response and nonresponse behaviors.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are many other response effects that influence measurement error due to culture that could be included such as disacquiescence, middling response style, mild response style, non-contingent response style, net acquiescence response style, response range, and straightlining (see Roberts 2016; van Vaerenbergh and Thomas 2013; Yang et al. 2010, for overviews). We decided to limit our description to the three most prominent response effects: extreme responding, acquiescence, and socially desirable responding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Survey Design and Methodology, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany

    Henning Silber

  2. Department of Public Administration, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Timothy P. Johnson

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  1. Henning Silber
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  2. Timothy P. Johnson
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Correspondence to Henning Silber .

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Philip S. Brenner

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Silber, H., Johnson, T.P. (2020). Culture and Response Behavior: An Overview of Cultural Mechanisms Explaining Survey Error. In: Brenner, P.S. (eds) Understanding Survey Methodology. Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47256-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47256-6_4

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