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Surveys are only useful for studying for what people believe, and only then what they're willing to admit. The discipline shouldn't make any claims about actual
by concede_pluto 9y ago
Surveys are only useful for studying for what people believe, and only then what they're willing to admit. The discipline shouldn't make any claims about actual behavior when the only observations that could possibly support them aren't permitted.
- ak_yo 9y agoI agree! People are very inconsistent. They change their beliefs, lie to people, are unsure about things, etc. A lot of sociologists would argue that this is a good reason to combine this kind of quantitative data with in-depth ethnographic observation of real behavior (e.g. https://shamuskhan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/talk-is-cheap-final-revised.pdf https://shamuskhan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/talk-is-cheap...). When we want to see how someone's opinion actually plays out in a real situation, that's usually our best tool. Also, a lot of survey data captures demographic characteristics, not just individual beliefs-- think censuses. Surveys are generally considered a robust instrument for measuring things (like income, occupation, gender) that are relatively fixed over time.