Using Virtual Interviewers to Explore Race of Interviewer Effects

几项研究发现，在调查中，面试者的种族影响是普遍和强大的，特别是当调查涉及种族问题时。然而，由于各种原因，面试官的种族效应尤其难以衡量。该项目开发和测试了一种在受控条件下研究这种影响的新方法。计算机辅助自我访谈(CASI)系统将录制面试者阅读调查问题的录像带。通过这种方式，面试官的种族可以系统地改变，而其他面试官的属性保持不变。PI使用现有的软件建立了视频CASI系统的原型。这种方法对于探索受访者对虚拟面试者的反应是否与他们对现场面试者的反应相同，以及了解受访者对关于社会敏感问题的调查问题的回答的影响(现场或虚拟)提供了重要的好处。这项研究涉及一项实验室实验，包括白人和黑人受试者的样本。实验条件允许对现场面试官进行考试，而不是对同一种族和相反种族的虚拟面试官进行考试。此外，TEXT-CASI自行管理的访谈小组将作为对照。这项工作的结果将在几个方面具有相关性。首先，它评估了一个潜在的强大的新工具来研究采访者的种族效应。其次，这些发现的意义超越了种族，并允许我们探索态度和观点是如何被表达出来的社会背景塑造的。第三，该项目将探索计算机的“虚拟社交存在”在多大程度上类似于活人。

Several studies have found race of interviewer effects in surveys to be pervasive and powerful, especially when the survey concerns racially loaded issues. For a variety of reasons, however, race of interviewer effects are particularly difficult to measure. This project develops and tests a new method for studying such effects under controlled conditions. A computer assisted self-interviewing (CASI) system will have a videotaped interviewer reading survey questions. In this way, the interviewer's race can be systematically varied while other interviewer attributes are held constant. The PIs have prototyped video-CASI systems using existing software. This approach offers important benefits for exploring whether respondents react in the same way to a virtual interviewer as they would to a live interviewer, and for understanding interviewer effects (live or virtual) on the answers respondents give to survey questions about socially sensitive issues. The research involves a laboratory experiment including samples of both white and black subjects. Experimental conditions permit an examination of live interviewers as opposed virtual interviewers of the same race and of opposite race. In addition, a text-CASI self-administered interview group will serve as a control. The results of this work will have relevance on several fronts. First, it evaluates a potentially powerful new tool for studying race of interviewer effects. Second, the implications of the findings go beyond race, and allow the exploration of how attitudes and opinions are shaped by the social context in which they are articulated. Third, the project will explore the extent to which the "virtual social presence" of a computer may resemble that of a live person.