I have recently started an online psych class (now that I have completed my obligatory vegan class on plant-based diets and how they're saving the whole world). This psychology class introduced a few different ways a psychologist might collect data. One of these ways is: the survey. I have always thought them useless. Here is why (in detail and in the tone of a rant, for some reason. Even though no one is pressuring me to take a survey or even asking me my opinions on them).
Who was the first person to think of giving a group / selection of people a survey?
Sure, I could look it up, but that is for another day. Today: we are pondering.
The thought, I am sure, had occurred to others. Something will have gotten in the way of the first few, likely, as it typically does. One of the challenges I think the surveys present: dishonesty. Whether it is unbeknownst or knownst to the party / selection of surveyees. I am willing to bet that the majority (at least) of the people who would take a survey would be dishonest. There are so many factors at play that I am (and have always been) shocked to the teeth that this way of "collecting information" was ever even implemented. Hell - that it ever got past the brainstorm phase.
There's the factor of paranoia - popular in my generation as well as previous - which will at least lead the surveyee into a downward spiral of suspicion and make them feel as though there are ulterior motives to the event / of the survey/surveyor. At... well, most likely (to be honest), once mixed with self-absorption and delusion: (popular in mine and the generation to follow) this will lead the surveyee into a sort of Truman theory. Wherein the surveyee will be convinced that they are in a constant state of being watched / surveyed / there is no privacy / people are always spying on them / everyone else is an NPC and they are the only real person and this experiment is so much bigger than what it appears.
Then there is the base-line delusion, wherein the surveyee is convinced they are telling the truth when in reality they are not. This person would like to believe that they are a good - at least decent - person and so they have told themselves that they are just that. For a while. Years. And years. And in this self-assurance: they have completely persuaded their mind to be made up. They simply are a good person and they will never think otherwise and anything anyone else says is lies and they are obviously jealous or: just don't get it. This person taking the survey will almost certainly select the answers that they consider to be the "good-person" answers or the "right-thing-to-do" / "thing-one-should". They have heard the surveyor say that these are anonymous. They heard them say that there was no way to ever trace this survey back to them. But this person is also delusional and will act accordingly.
There are the people who can't focus long enough on the question to even bother giving it a thought, people who can't focus on the question and so: spend an amount of time reading and re-reading and then get nervous about how long they just spent, get distracted by wondering if everyone took this long / what everyone is thinking about them right now / insecurities, distractions, nerves... The person who just wants it over with and rushes through it, the person who ponders much longer than is arguably necessary. The person who is being arrogant / narcissistic, the person who is being so humble that they have humbled themselves into being dishonest (most likely by mistake).
Who ever thought this was a good idea? Or even much more of an idea? I would have thought that this would have died a quick and painless death upon the phrase: "Wouldn't it be nice if we could count on humans to answer surveys accurately so that we could then collect information on a large number of people?"
