WSJ reports that people are more likely to provide socially-acceptable answers to survey questions about themselves when interviewed by a person (or even an avatar!) than when responding to an automated survey system or a recording. Such questions relate to politics, hygiene, exercise, health, and so on.
The research is helping refine polling at a university phone center nearby. Activity at the center, which sits in a former school building, picks up around dinnertime when the staff makes calls for university-run surveys from a warren of cubicles. The questioners are asked to speak in even tones, reading from scripts. No one is allowed to say, "How are you?" in case the person on the other end had a bad day. The interviewers don't laugh; they don't want people to treat this as a social call. They are allowed only neutral responses such as "I see" or "Hmm."
There are some interesting demonstrations at Harvard's Implicit project.
Aleks,
I disagree completely with your recommendation. I think computer phone calls are immoral. They are a form of harassment.
I've never endorsed computer phone calls (autodialers)! They are not just immoral, but also illegal - in the USA under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.
@Aleks,
They are not always illegal. If the purpose is non-commercial or the call is made by a tax-exempt non-profit then the TCPA doesn't apply.
For companies that make voice response systems, this differences between talking to machines versus humans remain a huge problem. There's a wonderful book on how people interact with computers and how it compares to how they interact with people by Nass and Reeves called The Media Equation. (Spoiler: People treat computers much more like other people than you might think they would.)
This research (at least the research discussed in the graphic) had noting to do with autodialers and IVR surveys--it was a comparison by Harris of a sample of people reached by phone with a sample that responed to an online survey!
Of course, since Harris has a well-known panel, and we don't know how the samples were drawn, this rises the question as to whether the differences were due to the survey mode (as the story implies) or differences in the samples! Are people who are part of an internet panel more likely to behave in socially non-normative ways?
Geoffrey,
In my comment I was referring to the title of Aleks's blog entry.