Surveys as a Social Experience: The Lingering Effects of Survey Design Choices on Respondents' Survey Experience and Subsequent Optimizing Behavior

We propose that the design of earlier survey sections affects respondents’ response strategy to later unrelated questions. We hypothesize that the structure of the survey is socially construed, and when earlier survey design features are respectful of the rules of social conversation, individuals are more likely to optimize their responses later on and express more satisfaction in end-of-survey evaluations. We find evidence supporting these expectations from two experiments, but more research is needed to sort out the causal mechanism responsible for these effects.