Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys

Adeline Delavande, Susann Rohwedder

Published Jun 26, 2008

Individuals' subjective expectations are important in explaining heterogeneity in individual choices, but their elicitation poses challenges. In this paper, the authors present their findings from testing an innovative visual representation of an Internet survey in the context of individuals' Social Security expectations. Respondents were randomly divided into two groups: Half were administered the standard “percent chance” format; half were asked to allocate a total of 20 balls across seven bins to express what they believe the chances to be that their future Social Security benefits would fall into any one of those bins. The authors found that the main advantage of the visual format is that it generates usable answers for virtually all respondents. This suggests that the visual format is a viable alternative that leads to more complete data.

Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2008
  • Pages: 45
  • Document Number: WR-589

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Delavande, Adeline and Susann Rohwedder, Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys, RAND Corporation, WR-589, 2008. As of September 26, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR589.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Delavande, Adeline and Susann Rohwedder, Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008. https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR589.html.
BibTeX RIS

This paper series was made possible by the NIA funded RAND Center for the Study of Aging and the NICHD funded RAND Population Research Center.

This publication is part of the RAND working paper series. RAND working papers are intended to share researchers' latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. They have been approved for circulation by RAND but may not have been formally edited or peer reviewed.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.