REACTIVE INSIGHT EFFECTS OF SURVEY PARTICIPATION

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the Applicant's Abstract): The goal of the proposed project is to advance knowledge of how participation in surveys that include assessments of social, psychological, health, and behavioral constructs -- as commonly employed to study stress and coping, courtship, family life, adjustment, mental health, and developmental issues -- may inadvertently influence the lives of survey participants and confound survey measures, i.e., that reactive insight can produce "long lasting change in a respondent's self-concept, attitudes, emotions, well-being, or behavioral tendencies as a result of research participation." Although prior investigations suggest that reactive insight may relate to important measurement and human subject issues, there has been very little systematic research in this area. We will explore reactive insight through quantitative and qualitative analysis of two longitudinal panel studies of couples -- Role Conflict and Coping Among Women Professionals and the Early Years of Marriage study -- both of which have new data related to reactive insight (the EYM study also includes a control group). Project goals include: (1) broadening the scientific understanding of reactive insight, its genesis, and effects; (2) stimulating further reactive insight research, collaborations, and data collections; (3) addressing ethical considerations of reactive insight effects and subsequent issues of informed consent; and (4) stimulating the development of methodological and statistical techniques to improve the measurement and control of reactive insight effects. With respect to these goals, the project will address the following analysis issues: 1. How can reactive insight effects be conceptualized and theoretically modeled? 2. What reactive insights are reported by respondents or can be reliably inferred? 3. How does reactive insight relate to change in the level and variance of measures of physical and mental health, well-being, coping strategies, role performance, regrets, and other psychological, health and behavioral assessments? 4. What are the characteristics of respondents, contexts, interview methods, and environments that distinguish who is likely to report and experience reactive insight effects? 5. Can a predictive model of reactive insight effects and its correlates be developed? 6. Can analytic methods be developed to correct certain survey estimates for reactive insight effects? The investigators plan to disseminate reactive insight project results and information (through professional meetings and the Internet) among health and social science researchers in an effort to stimulate further scientific discussion and research into understanding and addressing important reactive insight issues, such as those related to research design, measurement, informed consent, dynamics of personal reflection, and statistical error correction.