Response Set – Methodische Problematik und soziologische Interpretation / Response Set – Methodological Problems and Sociological Interpretation
AbstractOne of the most common restrictions on data collecting through research communications is what is called Response Set occurring especially in two kinds: Acquiescence and social desirability. It will be shown that both kinds of Response Set are in like manner consequences of strategies of interaction in non-defined situations to maintain the consensus in such situations. The occurrance of one or the other kind of Response Set is dependent on the one hand on respective different values of the same variables: stimulus ambiguity and the value of the expected reward in the situation. It is dependent on the other hand on specific subcultural (“sociological”) generalizations of the actual interaction strategies of the experimental subjects. It is possible to show then that on the one hand the validity of data collecting through research communications cannot be maximized, and on the other hand systematic distortions are produced, which normally lead to fictuous confirmation of assumptions of the normative paradigm in sociological theory.