Heal L W, Sigelman C K
Department of Special Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
J Intellect Disabil Res. 1995 Aug;39 ( Pt 4):331-40. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.1995.tb00525.x.
The validity of responses by individuals with mental retardation during interviews is threatened by a number of biases. Acquiescence (the disposition to answer 'yes' regardless of the question asked) is a commonly observed response bias committed by respondents to questionnaires and interviews, and this disposition is significantly more pronounced when persons of low status are questioned by high-status interviewers. Research on the acquiescence bias suggests that it can be reduced in mentally retarded respondents by replacing the usual 'yes/no' question format with an 'either/or' format. Enhancing the either/or choices with accompanying picture representations of each choice is beneficial in increasing mentally retarded subjects' responding and in reducing their tendency to choose the latter of two either/or choices. 'Nay-saying' (the disposition to say 'no' regardless of the question asked), while less common than 'yea-saying' (i.e. than acquiescence), has also been noted in response to certain question formats and taboo topics. This review implies that the validity of an interview with respondents of limited intelligence depends greatly on the format of its questions.
智力迟钝者在访谈中的回答有效性受到多种偏差的威胁。默许（即无论所问问题如何都倾向于回答“是”）是问卷调查和访谈中受访者常见的一种回答偏差，当低地位者被高地位访谈者提问时，这种倾向会明显更显著。关于默许偏差的研究表明，通过将通常的“是/否”问题格式替换为“要么/要么”格式，可以减少智力迟钝受访者的这种偏差。用每个选项的图片表示来强化“要么/要么”的选择，有助于增加智力迟钝受试者的回答，并减少他们选择两个“要么/要么”选项中后者的倾向。“说不”（即无论所问问题如何都倾向于回答“否”）虽然比“说是”（即默许）少见，但在某些问题格式和禁忌话题的回答中也有发现。这篇综述表明，对智力有限的受访者进行访谈的有效性在很大程度上取决于问题的格式。
