“Your Survey is Biased”: A Preliminary Investigation into Respondent Perceptions of Survey Bias

Collecting survey data has become more resource-intensive as response rates have declined. Contemporaneous to the decline in response rates has been a growing distrust in science among the general public in nations such as the United States. The authors suggest that this decline in trust has implications for survey data collection, in that some respondents state that surveys on contentious topics are “biased.” In this paper, the authors present preliminary qualitative and quantitative data to understand the extent and origins of perceptions of survey bias. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research to further understand this problem and develop ameliorative strategies.