Retrospective Reports: The Impact of Response Formats

Abstract

As the chapters in this volume indicate, basic psychological research into individuals, autobiographical memories has provided many fruitful insights into the cognitive processes that underlie autobiographical recollections. In only a few years, this research has had a pronounced impact on the strategies that applied researchers use to obtain veridical retrospective reports in sample surveys. Nevertheless, the methods that are typically used in psychological experiments and sample surveys differ in important ways. Most importantly, the majority of psychological investigations are based on retrospective reports that subjects provide in a free-response format. In contrast, respondents in a survey interview are typically asked to check one of several response alternatives presented to them by the survey interviewer.