And when the result of those first three stages or
sets of processes don't correspond to response options that are offered
they need to select a response option by mapping what's
in their heads to the options that have been offered.
In a model like this
the stages are presented sequentially
but respondents can back track. So for example, if a respondent is in
the process of retrieving, let's say, doctor's visits
and it's becoming increasingly difficult as the
doctor visits are going back further in
time, respondent might think, "There's no way
they intended for me to actually
recall or count up all my doctor visits over this long time period."
"Let me go back and reconsider the
question, reconsider what I'm being asked to do."
So, there's the potential to backtrack through these stages.
Ideally, a respondent will perform each of these stages
for that problem, but much of what we're focused on
is the kinds of problems they encounter.
So they might misunderstand the question in
the comprehension stage and actually try to answer
a question other than the one that the
authors of the questionnaire intended them to answer.
They, when it comes to retrieval, there might be nothing to retrieve.
They might not have actually encoded or recorded.
The relevant events in their memories.
And then there's probably nothing that can be done to bring them to mind.
They might've recorded the events in their memories, but have forgotten them.
So, forgetting is a problem when it comes to retrieval.
They might take shortcuts.
So, one class of shortcuts is called
satisficing, which is the tendency to give
acceptable but not optimal answers.
For example, if there's a long series of response options,
respondents might not give full attention to all of them.
They might, instead, give more attention to the earlier response options.
Or they might engage in what's called acquiescence,
which is the tendency to give positive answers,
so to say "I agree"
in agree/disagree questions, when they might not fully agree.
And they might intentionally misreport answers.
Giving answers that are more socially desirable to
questions on topics that are considered to be sensitive.