Incentives to Increase Survey Returns: Social Class Considerations

A number of studies have indicated that offering a monetary incentive influences the percentage of return in a mail survey 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11. Within this group of studies, explorations have been made of the relative increase gained when the incentive is given immediately versus the increase when it is promised only upon the return of the completed questionnaire 10, 11. As researchers have begun to look at why incentives increase return, however, the values held by the potential respondents have been seen as significant. One study 3, for example, noted the increase in return when the monetary incentive was given immediately and unconditionally and concluded that those receiving money experienced dissonance: their values prevented them from accepting payment without doing the task for which they were being paid-return of the questionnaire. Therefore, they returned it. The study presented here, proceeding from this emphasis on values, was designed to take into account the variable of social class. This concept sees society as stratified by combinations of such factors as occupation, amount and source of income, education, house type, and neighborhood 8, p. 174, with individuals in each stratum holding values common to his stratum but different from the values of those in other strata. The objective of the study was to test in a lower-class neighborhood with black residents and in a middle-class neighborhood with white residents the relative effect of immediate monetary incentive versus conditional (promised) monetary incentive on percentage of questionnaires returned. It was felt that these two strata, viewed in sociological literature as holding dramatically different values, would offer the most vivid contrast for a test of this kind. The neighborhoods were selected as lower-class and