Classroom Participation for Subliminal Impact in Surveys

• Activity Number: 699
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 8, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Edward Mansfield*+
• Companies: Univ of Alabama
• Keywords: Teaching ; Survey ; Subliminal

Abstract

The power of persuasion can be used effectively to win arguments and close deals. When used in an understated manner the person who was persuaded may never realize what the mechanism was that may have influenced their response. The power of subliminal suggestions can also have an effect in responses to questions. This technique can be used effectively by special interest groups in the design of their questionnaires. In any given issue, there are those individuals who are absolutely in favor of and those on the other extreme who are opposed to the issue. In the middle is a sea of undecided or unconcerned individuals. By using preliminary questions to "educate" the respondents before the big questions are asked, undecided respondents can be swayed toward the desired side of the organization. The unsuspecting victims may never know that they were duped by clever wording. In this presentation a simple demonstration is given of how this process can be used in the classroom on unsuspecting students to influence how they will respond to a survey question. The power that a single word can play in engineering a response will be also illustrated.