Using Virtual Interviewers to Explore Race of Interviewer Effects

几项研究发现，在调查中，采访者的种族影响是普遍而强大的，尤其是当调查涉及种族问题时。然而，由于种种原因，面试官种族的影响尤其难以衡量。该项目开发并测试了一种在受控条件下研究此类效应的新方法。一个计算机辅助自我访谈（CASI）系统将有一个录像的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系统的原型。这种方法对于探索受访者对虚拟面试官的反应是否与对真人面试官的反应相同，以及了解面试官对受访者回答有关社会敏感问题的影响（真人或虚拟）提供了重要的好处。这项研究包括一个实验室实验，包括白人和黑人受试者的样本。实验条件允许对现场采访者进行检查，而不是同一种族和相反种族的虚拟采访者。此外，文本casi自我管理访谈组将作为对照。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面试官的种族效应。其次，这些发现的含义超越了种族，并允许探索态度和观点是如何被社会背景所塑造的。第三，该项目将探索计算机的“虚拟社会存在”与真人相似的程度

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