EXPERIMENTS WITH THE MIDDLE RESPONSE ALTERNATIVE IN SURVEY QUESTIONS

A series of experiments shows (1) that people are significantly more likely to select the middle response alternative on an issue when it is explicitly offered to them as part of the question than when it is omitted; (2) that merely mentioning that there is a middle alternative, in the preface to the question, makes it more likely that respondents will select it, even though it is not offered to them as an explicit choice; (3) that the order in which the middle alternative is presented in the question-in the middle or last position-can make a significant difference in the results, but that a "recency bias" does not occur invariably, or consistently; and (4) that people who select a middle response alternative when it is offered would not necessarily answer the question in the same way as other respondents if forced to choose sides on the issue. Experiments by Schuman and Presser (1981) have shown that people are much more likely to select a middle response alternative on an issue when it is explicitly offered to them as part of the question than when it must be spontaneously volunteered. Offering respondents a middle alternative can therefore make a substantial difference in the distribution of opinion on an issue. But their research also shows that, if the data for the middle responses to both question forms (offered and omitted) are deleted from the analysis, there is usually no significant difference between the two forms in the percentage selecting one polar position on the issue or the other (e.g., increase or decrease). A researcher, they argue, would thus reach the same conclusion about the GEORGE F. BISHOP is Associate Professor of Political Science and a Senior Research Associate in the Behavioral Sciences Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research. This project was supported, in part, by grants from the National Science Foundation (SOC 78-07407 and SES 81-11404), and by a grant from the Procter & Gamble Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The author would like to thank Jack Henry at PG Schuman and Presser, 1981:Ch. 4). Similarly, the conclusions Schuman and Presser have drawn about the effects of middle alternatives in survey questions may be limited to the topics with which they have experimented: marijuana, Vietnam, liberal-conservative, local education, and divorce (Schuman and Presser, 1981:163). A series of experiments we have done with three public policy matters-social security benefits, defense spending, and nuclear power plants-allow us to test the generality of their conclusions, not only about the effects of offering middle alternatives on response distributions but also about the effects of the order in which the middle alternative is presented to respondents. Such alternatives are usually presented at the end of the question, as in the one about social security benefits: "Do you think social security benefits should be increased, decreased, or continued at the present level?" Respondents may therefore choose the middle alternative, in part, because it is easier to remember when presented in the last position. By varying the order in which the middle alternative was read to respondents in two of the experiments we were able to test, further, the "recency" bias demonstrated by Schuman and Presser.