Comments on: Facts, Lies, Business Truth http://timberry.bplans.com/2007/10/i-cant-resist-p.html Tim Berry on business planning, starting and growing your business, and having a life in the meantime Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:26:20 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Candureactor http://timberry.bplans.com/2007/10/i-cant-resist-p.html/comment-page-1#comment-91 Candureactor Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:14:35 +0000 http://timberry.bplans.com/2007/10/i-cant-resist-p.html#comment-91 <p>This is a wonderful post that provides great stories about common types of bias in social research. In their book, "The Psychology of Survey Response," Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski suggest that there are four areas of question processing that can shed light on the filters or biases that come into play when answering questions (excuse the broad paraphrasing):</p> <p>1. Comprehension of the question: how clear is the question; socio-demographic biases<br /> 2. Retrieval: ways of remembering and accessing; specific and generic memories; filling in missing data<br /> 3. Judgment: decisions concerning information needed for an accurate answer; estimates based on partial or inaccurate memories <br /> 4. Response: evaluation of response in terms of accuracy; evaluate in terms of other goals.</p> <p>With that in mind, to answer your question, one needs to understand the filters and biases of those asking the questions and those answering them and try to make sense of the responses. It also depends on the cost of making the decision based on poor information. In the case of Microsoft, perhaps the response saved the company millions in litigation and a higher valuation of Facebook. In the case of the employee referral, you could hurt your company / team moral if you only rely on testimonials and don't do other evaluation.</p> <p>Again, thanks for the post.</p> This is a wonderful post that provides great stories about common types of bias in social research. In their book, "The Psychology of Survey Response," Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski suggest that there are four areas of question processing that can shed light on the filters or biases that come into play when answering questions (excuse the broad paraphrasing):

1. Comprehension of the question: how clear is the question; socio-demographic biases
2. Retrieval: ways of remembering and accessing; specific and generic memories; filling in missing data
3. Judgment: decisions concerning information needed for an accurate answer; estimates based on partial or inaccurate memories
4. Response: evaluation of response in terms of accuracy; evaluate in terms of other goals.

With that in mind, to answer your question, one needs to understand the filters and biases of those asking the questions and those answering them and try to make sense of the responses. It also depends on the cost of making the decision based on poor information. In the case of Microsoft, perhaps the response saved the company millions in litigation and a higher valuation of Facebook. In the case of the employee referral, you could hurt your company / team moral if you only rely on testimonials and don't do other evaluation.

Again, thanks for the post.

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