Is there a point within a self-report questionnaire where participants will start responding carelessly? If so, then after how many items do participants reach that point? And what can researchers do to encourage participants to remain careful throughout the entirety of a questionnaire? We conducted two studies (Study 1 N = 358; Study 2 N = 129) to address these questions. Our results found (a) consistent evidence that participants responded more carelessly as they progressed further into a questionnaire, (b) mixed evidence that participants who were warned that carelessness would be punished displayed smaller increases in carelessness, and (c) mixed evidence that increases in carelessness were greater within an unproctored online study (Study 1) than within a proctored laboratory study (Study 2). These findings help address when and why careless responding is likely to occur, and they suggest effective preventive strategies.

自我报告调查表中是否存在参与者会开始粗心回答的问题？如果是这样，那么参与者达到多少个项目之后才达到该点？研究人员可以采取什么措施鼓励参与者在整个问卷中保持谨慎？我们进行了两项研究（研究1 N = 358；研究2 N= 129）来解决这些问题。我们的结果发现（a）一致的证据表明，随着参与者进一步进入问卷调查，他们会更加粗心地回答；（b）混合的证据表明，警告过粗心大意的参与者会表现出较小的粗心大意，以及（c）混合的证据表明，粗心大意在未经监督的在线研究（研究1）中，粗心大意要大于在监督的实验室研究（研究2）中。这些发现有助于解决粗心大意的反应何时以及为什么发生，并提出了有效的预防策略。