Statement Polarity in Attitude Studies

There has been widespread agreement among those who engage in research in marketing that how you ask the question is often as important as what you ask. But all too often this recognition is not reflected in practice and we tend to think that, if we can quantify our material and manipulate it statistically, the questionnaire has passed the tests of reliability, validity, and objectivity 10. Psychologists, in contrast to marketers, have recognized the questionnaire as a relatively crude measuring device and a large body of literature is available to support the importance of acquiescence as an explanation for research findings 3, 4, 5, 11-17. Most of these studies focus on the agreement phenomenon as it relates to the F Scale, a device to measure the authoritarian personality syndrome. A number of these researchers argue that the agreement phenomenon accounts for as much as 75 % of the answers to all items 12, 13, while others attribute yea saying to specific subject segments 8, 11, 18. Most of the studies dealing with framing marketing research questions or statements are so broad in scope that no single source of bias is given concentrated attention 2, 7. Conversely, this investigation was undertaken to uncover the differences in response, if any, between negatively and positively worded versions of the same attitude-eliciting statements. Assuming the double agreement phenomenon is uncovered, a secondary purpose was to determine whether this characteristic is typical of certain consumer groups.