Survey framing and mode effects in life satisfaction responses on Canadian social surveys

Quality of life and well-being research often involves survey content that is subjective in nature, for example, questions pertaining to life satisfaction. Two phenomena impacting responses to self-reported life satisfaction are studied across a range of social surveys: the framing effect, where a respondent’s answer is influenced by the theme of the survey or its content; and the mode effect, where a respondent’s answer is influenced by the method in which survey data are collected (with an interviewer, through an online collection portal, etc.). The impact of these effects on life satisfaction responses is measured across three Statistics Canada survey series: the General Social Survey (GSS), the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the Canadian Social Survey. The GSS uses a different theme each year that fits into one of four categories and serves as the main source of variation in survey theme. Significant framing effects are observed for each theme of the GSS relative to the CCHS, and they explain a large portion of between-year variations in average self-reported life satisfaction. A mode effect is also observed for electronic questionnaire collection relative to computer-assisted telephone interviews. Differences in life satisfaction scores across a variety of demographic concepts are also presented.