Using Virtual Interviewers to Explore Race of Interviewer Effects

几项研究发现，调查中的采访者种族效应是普遍和强大的，特别是当调查涉及种族加载问题时。然而，由于各种原因，面试官的种族效应特别难以衡量。该项目开发并测试了一种在受控条件下研究这种影响的新方法。计算机辅助自我采访（CASI）系统将有一个录像采访者阅读调查问题。通过这种方式，面试官的种族可以系统地变化，而面试官的其他属性保持不变。PI使用现有软件制作了视频CASI系统原型。这种方法提供了重要的好处，探索受访者是否以同样的方式对一个虚拟的面试官，因为他们会一个现场面试官的反应，并了解面试官的影响（现场或虚拟）的答案受访者给社会敏感问题的调查问题。这项研究涉及一项实验室实验，包括白色和黑人受试者的样本。实验条件允许检查现场采访者，而不是虚拟采访者的同一种族和相反的种族。此外，一个文本CASI自我管理的访谈组将作为一个控制。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，用于研究面试官的种族效应。第二，调查结果的影响超越了种族，并允许探索态度和意见是如何形成的社会背景下，他们的表达。第三，该项目将探索计算机的“虚拟社会存在”与真人的相似程度

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