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PROCESSES USED IN THE FORMULATION OF BEHAVIORAL FREQUENCY REPORTS IN SURVEYS Edward Blair, University of Houston Scot Burton, Louisiana State University ABSTRACT Previous conceptualizations of the response Sudman and Bradburn make a distinction between formulation process for behavioral frequency ques- threatening and non-threatening behavioral ques- tions in surveys have presumed that respondents tions in their discussion of response accuracy. recall and enumerate behavioral episodes and that Threatening questions concern anxiety arousing response errors (for non-threatening questions) behaviors that are illegal or contranormative primarily result from episode omission and tele- (e.g., use of illegal drugs)~ behaviors generally scoping. The results of three studies indicate not discussed without tension (e.g., masturbation)~ that a variety of processes are used to estimate and questions concerning socially desirable behav- frequency and that the processes used are affected iors (e.g., voting). Efforts to improve response by task conditions. The results suggest that accuracy for threatening questions have drawn from episodic enumeration may rarely be used for high a social motivational model in which researchers frequency behaviors such as many product purchase create or strengthen motives toward accuracy and/ or usage behaviors. The relationships between or remove or reduce motives against accuracy. task conditions, response formulation processes, Unlike threatening questions(for which respon- and several measures of response accuracy also