Questions About Questions: Inquiries into the Cognitive Bases of Surveys

4. Personal Recall and the Limits of Retrospective Questions in Surveys

4 Personal Recall and the Umits of Retrospective Questions in Surveysl ROBERT w. PEARSON, MICHAEL ROSS, and ROBYN M. DAWES Memory belongs to the imagination. Human memory is not like a computer which records things; it is part ofthe imaginative process, on the same terms as invention. -Alain Robbe-Grillet, author, scriptwriter, Last Year at Marienbad Herein lies a difficulty in any autobiographical sketch which purports to deal with one's mental development. It is a story of oneself in the past, read in the light of one's present self. There is much supplementary inference-ften erroneous inference-wherein "must of been" masquerades as "was so." -Lloyd Morgan 1930/1961, p. 237. Introduction Retrospective, or memory-based, responses to interview questions provide an indispensable window onto our past. Often, retrospective questions are 1. Portions of this chapter are based on Ross (1988). 65 66 MEMORY the only means available to monitor individual or social states, or their change. The responses to such questions are used, for example, to: • Estimate the nation's monthly unemployment rate. (Respondents who are not employed are asked to report whether they looked for work within the last four weeks, to differentiate between the unemployed and those not in the labor force.) • Estimate the lifetime prevalence rate of depression. (Respondents are asked whether they ever had a continuous period of two weeks or more during which they felt so depressed that it interfered with their daily activities.) • Assess the effect ofparental behavior on a person's current mental state. (Clinically depressed subjects are asked to report on the nature of their relationship with their parents when the subjects were growing up.) • Assess the likelihood of a child abuser having been abused by his or her own parents. (Child abusers are asked to recall whether they were abused as children to determine whether others who have been abused as children may be prone to abuse their own children.) • Provide estimates of the prevalence rates of various crimes. (Respondents in a national sample of households are asked whether they were robbed within the last six months.) • Evaluate the effectiveness of participating in programs designed to improve academic performance. (Students are asked to evaluate the effectiveness of skills-improvement programs by comparing their present skills to those they recalled having prior to participation in the program.) Much research in the social sciences depends upon personal recall. Some researchers have also been misled by it. Not long ago, for example, psychologists formulated theories ofdevelopment on the basis ofparents' retrospective deSCriptions oftheir child-rearing practices. Research suggests that such deSCriptions are often invalid evidence. For example, after Dr. Spock's book on child rearing became popular, mothers recalled that their parenting ofjust a few years earlier had been much more permissive than the concurrent evidence indicated (Robbins, 1963). Researchers now seek more directoften prospective--evidence for studies of development across the life span (Yarrow, Campbell, and Burton, 1970). Researchers and practitioners, however, continue to make considerable use of retrospective self-reports. In addition to those uses noted above, they include reports ofvoting, medical care, purchases, and finances. On the basis PERSONAL RECALL AND THE LIMITS OF RETROSPECTION 67 ofsuch self-reports, social scientists evaluate theories ofhuman behavior and offer advice on public policy. It is important, therefore, to know how personal memories are formed and how accurate they may be. Peoples' responses to retrospective questions are affected by such factors as the amount of time permitted for the response, the order of events being recalled, the presence or absence of anchors or comparisons, and so on (see Schuman and Kahon, 1986; Sudman and Bradburn, 1982). What we wish to emphasize in this chapter is that responses to questions of retrospective nature are also greatly influenced by the current psychological and environmental state ofthe respondents, and by the explicit or implicit theories which consist of schemata, narratives, or scripts they hold about themselves and society. A Theory of Personal Recall Memory is often a construction in which images of the past and present are combined with inferences drawn from implicit theories about selfand society (Bartlett, 1932; Mead, 1934). In the current chapter we focus on the memory of personal attributes such as prior beliefs, traits, and behaviors. The recall of personal attributes often involves a two-step process (Ross and Conway, 1986). First, the individual begins by noting his or her present status on the attribute in question. The...