Assessing Measurement Error in Hypothetical Questions

The hazard of asking survey participants hypothetical questions is that most often, responses are only an inferential vehicle for understanding preference and may not reflect the truth. Often it necessary to make a reasoned assumption about alignment individual's attitudes behaviors. In this paper, we discuss results from Survey Doctorate Recipients (SDR) pilot study experiment found significant response bias even when context was unambiguous included salient properties which were familiar respondents prior experience. asked Treatment group report their reaction slight alterations in SDR instrument; meanwhile, those Control hypothetically how they *would react* protocol if had experienced same changes. We identify presence across 10 respondent experience using both categorical quantitative methods. Our show consistently exhibited less than group. believe these differences representative measurement error resulting poor correspondence between group's reported This work shows concern opinion research conditions be clearly understood by similar previous experiences.