Does Answering Survey Questions Change How People Think About Political Issues?

Does the process of answering questions in a public opinion survey put new considerations or attitudes about issues in respondents' heads or make existing attitudes more accessible? To answer this question, we included open-ended questions at the beginning and end of a 2004 sample survey conducted via computer. Respondents were asked to list in a text box at the beginning of the survey any issues that came to mind in response to one of four randomly drawn issues in each of two waves of the survey. Respondents answered the same question at the end of each survey wave, but for a different issue from the set. Comparing responses to an issue at the beginning of the survey to those at the end of the survey provides a test of whether the survey changed the content of people's considerations. For most issues, responses at the beginning of the survey are no different from responses at the end of the survey. The process of answering survey questions does not add or make more accessible in memory considerations about issues