The participant interview method traded statistical rigor for conversational candor about sensitive attitudes

Evidence

Two hundred and seventy workers who had memorized a catalogue of fourteen open questions (for example, Do you remember having any particular experiences with Jewish people?', How do you distinguish a Jew from another person?’, What do you think about the Detroit riots?', Do you go to church?’) established their colleagues’ attitudes to Jews and anti-Semitism in everyday situations, and recorded the results in notes made afterwards. The combination of the similarity of the questions memorized and the openness of everyday conversational situations was intended to allow both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the resulting material. This is a pioneer experiment in social research,' the instruction sheet for the interviewing workers read. We want to know what working people honestly are thinking about the whole “Jewish question” and why they feel that way. Polls will not tell us. Interviews won’t either. Friendly conversations will.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1556

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the ‘participant interview’ technique Pollock referenced — workers memorizing open questions and conducting disguised everyday conversations.
• XREF: Connects to modern methods like focus-group and ethnographic research on sensitive topics, and parallels the STS critique of survey instruments. — connects to: Interviewers probed indirectly rather than asking subjects directly about sensitive topics — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 502; Grounded theory builds sound-quality explanations from coded interview notes

Broader Connections

• Interviewers probed indirectly rather than asking subjects directly about sensitive topics #expands (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 502
• Grounded theory builds sound-quality explanations from coded interview notes #expands (0.75)