"The Psychology of Survey Response: Implications for Trauma Research"

Much research in the social sciences is based on data gathered in surveys, and survey methodologists are gradually learning how respondents in surveys answer questions and how this process is responsible for reporting errors. One influential model divides the response process into four major components--comprehension, retrieval, judgment, and reporting--and suggests that errors arise because respondents misunderstand the questions, make a variety of memory errors, integrate the information they retrieve using faulty strategies, or distort their answers more or less deliberately. It is not clear how these response processes might be altered in traumatized populations or among those with PTSD, but a deeper understanding of the survey response process is likely to lead to better questions and more accurate answers.