Abstract
Frederick G. Conrad and Norman R. Brown
(1994) "Strategies for Estimating Category Frequency:
Effects of Abstractness and Distinctiveness," Proceedings
of the Section on Survey Research Methods, American Statistical
Association, forthcoming.
Survey respondents are often asked to report their
frequency of activity for particular categories of events or
objects. In order to answer "How many magazines did you
purchase last month?" one must determine which
publications qualify as magazines and report a number for all
of those items but no others. We conducted an experiment to
explore how the abstractness of a category (Basic Level or
Superordinate product categories) and the distinctiveness of
its members (different products or the same one presented
multiple times) affect the strategies and accuracy for
frequency estimates. The results suggest that people count
recalled products (an Enumeration strategy) if the products
are distinctive, but rely on a non-numerical sense of
magnitude (a General Impression strategy) when the products
are not distinct. Superordinate product categories lead to
underestimates, regardless of strategy, as do Basic Level
categories when people enumerate. However, estimates based on
general impressions appear to produce overestimates for Basic
Level categories. We discuss the results in terms of data
collection procedures.
Last Modified Date: July 19, 2008
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