Lying in surveys

Post Reply New Topic

Last night one of my online friends told me his funny aspie moment. These people called him asking if he like to do a survey and pay him for it so he gives them his name and address. Then they start the survey. They asked him "How often do you eat in the cafeteria?" and he says "rarely." He asks him the next question "How often do you eat from the vending machine?" and he says "rare." The guy gets frustrated and tells him to listen to the questions closely and pay attention so he asks him them again and he answers them again giving him the same answer. The guy says "You aren't the type of person to do the survey, good bye" and he hangs up. He told his mother about it and she told him he was supposed to lie by saying "often" so he can do the survey.


Okay did anyone else know about this? Do NTs figure this out on their own that they are supposed to lie? Do they want you to lie in their surveys?

What I don't get is why can't you move on further in the survey if you answer "rarely?"

i used to do market research. it was a very dull job. (over 15 years on, i can still remember the introduction we had to say).
the questioner was asking the questions beacuse he was trying to get info about eating habits- the survey will have been paid for be-eg- snickers or macdonalds. they only want people who eat those type of foods; when they find one, the survey progresses to satisfaction with it, value for money or whatever, questions.

so his mother was right and wrong- you get to progress through the survey by answering certain questions with a 'yes'- but you dont need to lie. they really do want to get 'valid data'.
people work out that its a long survey if they start answering 'yes' at the start, or short if they 'no' a lot.
you can make it longer or shorter by giving whatever answers you think are required for what you want. lots of people 'no' to get out of it.
its not really aspie or otherwise, its more just experiance a couple of times- then you realise the way it works. maybe its aspie not to have guessed all the way down the line to imagine an outcome, and to be so honest, and then startled by the outcome.
my deductive reasoning is pretty poor, so im not sure.

i hang up on them

yes, of course, that is the other option if you want to get out of it.