The relationships between traits, personal values, topic involvement, and topic sensitivity in a mail survey context

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the mechanisms that underlie nonresponse bias. We argue that response behaviour can be better understood by gaining insight into respondents’ values and traits that give more information about the reasons of the response behaviour. For this, the basic psychological characteristics, values and traits, are put in a framework together with topic involvement/sensitivity and intention to reply to a mail survey concerning the topic “the growing influence of the extreme right in society”. Results show that values exercise an indirect influence on intention (through topic involvement/sensitivity). More specifically, the value dimensions (i.e., resultant conservation and resultant self-enhancement) are negatively related to topic involvement and positively to topic sensitivity, while topic involvement is positively associated with intention, and topic sensitivity has a negative association with intention. Furthermore, the value dimensions can be further explained by looking at traits. Limitations and suggestions for further research are provided.