Response Set in Developing Countries

This study underscores some of the difficulties encountered when using questionnaires such as the California F scale to measure attitudes of different social strata in developing countries. By means of a carefully devised experiment in Chile, the authors are able to show great differences in response set between social classes, in particular, that acquiescence set is far more frequent among the lower, less educated classes than among the upper classes. The authors urge extreme care in interpreting answers from low-education groups, especially to ambiguous items.