The effect of survey measurement on respondent behaviour

Although it is well known that measures obtained from surveyed samples may not perfectly match the true values in the population, surveys are generally thought to reflect but not to change opinion or subsequent behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to review a new, growing stream of research that demonstrates that merely responding to a marketing research survey alters subsequent behaviour. The papers in this stream of research compare the behaviour of an experimental group where individuals respond to a marketing research survey to a control group where individuals do not complete a survey. The results show that measuring intentions or satisfaction in a marketing research survey, changes the behaviour of respondents in the experimental group. For positively viewed products, overall, respondents in the experimental group have higher purchase incidence, buy more quickly, and are more profitable customers than those in the control group. Further, the results in some cases persist over time. Although research to determine why this mere measurement effect occurs is ongoing, to date, results suggest that measurement increases the accessibility of attitudes toward the product, which in turn makes the resulting behaviour more consistent with those attitudes than when measurement does not occur. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.