Interviewer prior knowledge of subjects biases questioning and recall.

Evidence

You may remember that the interview schedule left the interviewer free to determine the particular questions he would ask and the order of their asking. Is it not probable that when an interviewer knew he was dealing with a highly prejudiced subject he tried a little harder to obtain evidence of “Rigidity,” “Idealization of Parents,” and the like, than when he knew that he was dealing with an unprejudiced subject? Indeed there is fragmentary evidence in the interview quotations of the use of leading questions. Thus, when a respondent spoke of premarital sex relations, the interviewer asked, “All momentary relationships?” (Adorno, et al., 1950, p. 393) If bias did not enter into the questioning itself it may have done so in the interviewer’s subsequent effort to make a verbatim record from his own shorthand notes. Expectations we know can have a selective effect on recall. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 597

Categorization

• XREF: Pre-echoes modern concerns about experimenter bias, demand characteristics, and blinding in clinical and social research.
• SEED: An essay angle: how the history of the famous Authoritarian Personality study’s methodological flaws parallels today’s concerns about unblinded researchers and motivated interpretation.