How much is ‘quite a bit’? Mapping between numerical values and vague quantifiers

Vague quantifiers, terms like “quite a bit” and “hardly ever”, are often used in the response scales of psychology and social science questionnaires to measure the frequency of certain behaviours. However, responses to such questions arc confounded because people differ in their interpretations of vague quantifiers. We propose that people interpret vague quantifiers by constructing a notion of how most people behave. Examining a critical topic for media researchers–estimating the amount of television walched–we conducted two split‐ballot experiments in national surveys. Our first study ( n = 1028) demonstrates that the amount people think other people watch varies according to how much television they watch themselves and the behaviour of their social group. Our second experiment ( n = 1106) extends this result to the interpretation of vague quantifiers. These findings shed light on the psychological processes involved when interpreting vague quantifiers, and bring into question the validity of many survey results.