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Ever noticed how as soon as you learn a new word or idea, you start seeing it everywhere? Once you discover a new concept suddenly social media, emails, and everyone around you start talking about it nonstop. There is a term for this- the frequency illusion.
The frequency illusion is the perception that something is more frequent or important than it actually is, simply because we’re more conscious of it. It’s a cognitive bias that can lead to inaccurate or skewed survey results, it could influence respondents’ opinions, preferences, and eventually responses in the survey.
In this article, we will explain what the frequency illusion is, how it influences surveys, and how to avoid or minimize it in your survey design.
The frequency illusion is a common cognitive bias that something we’ve noticed or learned recently is more frequent than it really is. It’s also referred to as the Baader-Meinhof effect and has a significant influence on survey responses, data collection, and analysis.
For example, if you have recently learned about a new product or trend, you may begin to notice it everywhere and believe it is extremely popular. This can have an impact on your responses to survey questions about your preferences or opinions.
Let’s say you’re surveying what people think about sugar in drinks and how it affects us. If someone reads an article or has a conversation about how sugar in drinks affects us, they might start to pay more attention to it and start to notice it more in their everyday life.
So, when respondents see a sugar-related question in your survey, they might overstate its importance and give answers that reflect this heightened awareness.
Respondents who recently come across a topic or an idea may provide exaggerated or distorted responses that do not accurately reflect their true beliefs or behavior. This can lead to a misrepresentation of the data and impact the overall results of the survey.
If some respondents are more likely than others to experience the Frequency Illusion, this can lead to a sample that isn’t representative of the population being surveyed. This can make the survey results less valid and less generalizable.
Frequency illusion in surveys can result in inaccurate conclusions and poor decision-making based on misinterpretations of the survey data. For example, researchers may think that the patterns or trends they see in the data are a result of real changes in the population when they’re actually a result of cognitive bias.
The way a question is phrased can influence how you interpret it and what you recall from memory. For example, if a question asks how frequently you eat fast food, you may come up with different examples if the question does not specify a time frame (e.g., in the last week, month, or year).
The question wording can also trigger associations with other concepts or events that might influence your answer. For example, if you are asked if you are concerned about climate change, you are more likely to respond positively if you have recently heard or read about a natural disaster caused by global warming.
The response options can act as cues or anchors that influence your judgment of how frequent something is.
Also, if the response options are limited or biased, you may feel compelled to choose an option that does not accurately represent your true beliefs or experiences. For example, if you are asked how many books you read in a year and the response options range from 0 to 50, you may feel pressured to select a higher number than the number of books you actually read in a year.
The environment where the survey takes place can influence how participants interpret and respond to questions. Participants’ responses can be swayed by factors such as social desirability, peer influence, or the presence of external stimuli.
For example, if you take a survey about your political opinions right after watching a news program, you might be more influenced by the information and opinions that you just heard.
The survey context can also affect your motivation and attention level when taking the survey, which might influence how carefully and accurately you answer. For example, if you take a survey for fun on a social media platform, you’re more likely to answer quickly and spontaneously than if you’re taking it for research purposes on a professional site.
Priming is the subconscious activation of specific thoughts or ideas that can influence subsequent behavior or opinions. For example, if you give people information about a certain topic before they answer a survey, it can change their perception of the concept’s frequency.
Anchoring, on the other hand, happens when people base their judgments or estimates on the first information they come across. Participants’ responses may be influenced if a survey question contains an initial reference point or anchor, resulting in a distorted perception of frequency
Here are some strategies for avoiding and mitigating frequency illusions in surveys:
Ensure your sample demographics are diverse in terms of age, gender, and background. This way, you can get a more accurate picture of the population and avoid underestimating or overstating the frequency of certain attitudes or behaviors.
Avoid leading, loaded, or ambiguous words that might influence the respondents’ answers or make them feel pressured to conform to a certain expectation.
These are techniques that allow respondents to answer sensitive or personal questions anonymously or indirectly, reducing the risk of social desirability bias or dishonesty.
For example, instead of asking respondents to recall specific events or experiences, you can provide them with a random list of events or situations and ask them to recall which ones they have seen or experienced. This minimizes the risk of selective focus and memory bias.
Compare your results with other data sources. Do not assume that your results are correct just because they align with your experience or assumptions. Look for possible errors or inconsistencies and seek feedback from experts or peers.
Survey results can be difficult to analyze and interpret, particularly when there are cognitive biases like the frequency illusion at play. However, there are techniques you can use to overcome these biases and get accurate results, here are some of them:
Make sure the questions are clear, unbiased, and relevant to your research objectives. Review the sample size, sampling method, and response rate.
Also, assess the potential sources of error and bias in the data collection process. Use this information to take precautions against the frequency illusion.
Don’t base your decision on a single or isolated finding. Look at the big picture and possible explanations and implications of the results. Also, compare your results with previous research and existing literature on the topic.
Depending on the kind and amount of data you have, you can use either descriptive or inferential stats to summarise and compare the data. For example, using charts and graphs to show large data and spot trends and exceptions in them.
Triangulation involves using multiple sources, methods, or perspectives to validate your findings. For example, supplementing an online survey with face-to-face interviews or observational studies to gain a more comprehensive perspective.
Cross-validation involves comparing your results to those of another sample or dataset. For example, you can repeat your survey with a different group of respondents or use a different survey tool.
Example 1- Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is a typical example of the frequency illusion in survey research. It happens when something that you recently learned seems to appear “everywhere” soon after it was first brought to your attention.
For instance, if you read an article about a rare disease, you may start noticing more people talking about it or more cases reported in the media. This can lead you to overestimate the prevalence of the disease and bias your survey questions or responses accordingly (Healthline, 2019).
Example 2– The Recency Effect
This occurs when we give more weight to the most recent information or events when making judgments or decisions. For example, if you are asked to rate your satisfaction with a product or service, you may be influenced by your most recent experience with it, instead of your overall impression.
Example 3– The Availability Heuristic
This is when we rely on the ease with which we can recall or access information or examples when making judgments or estimates. This can affect how we perceive or respond to survey questions or options.
For example, if you are asked to estimate the likelihood of a certain event or outcome, you may be influenced by how vivid or memorable it is, rather than how probable it is.
The frequency illusion can have major implications for survey results and analysis. It can distort data validity and reliability, leading to wrong recommendations and inferences.
Using best practices to avoid frequency illusions allows you to make data-driven decisions with greater accuracy. Having a user-intuitive survey and analytics tools like Formplus also makes it simple to draw accurate conclusions and identify skewed survey data.
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