The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) is the principal professional asso-ciation for survey researchers in the United States.
Organized shortly after World War II, AAPOR devel-ops and promotes ethical principles to guide survey research, advances its methodology, and attempts to further an understanding of appropriate practice both for researchers and the general public. Its ethical code and its enforcement have evolved with changing tech-nology and new applications of survey research.
Founding of AAPOR
The redeployment of U.S. industrial power to the pro-duction of consumer goods after World War II stimu-lated interest in a wide variety of survey applications, particularly market and media research. The economy American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) 19
needed mass media to sell the output of mass produc-tion, and survey research made the marketing process efficient.
Harry Field, who had founded the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Denver in 1941, saw the war’s end as an opportunity to assem-ble the diverse strands of survey research. He orga-nized a national conference to open on July 29, 1946.
The site was Central City, Colorado, 42 miles of wind-ing mountain road from downtown Denver and 8 hours by reciprocating-engine airliner from New York City. Field invited 264 practitioners, and 73 attended.
Don Cahalan, who coordinated the event, classified the attendees: 19 from media, 18 academics, 13 com-mercial researchers, 11 from nonprofits, 7 government employees, 3 from advertising agencies, and 2 others.
A key session on technical and ethical standards in public opinion research was led by George Gallup, Clyde Hart of the Office of Price Administration, Julian Woodward of Elmo Roper’s organization, and Field. In a paper that Paul Sheatsley would later describe as
‘‘remarkably prescient,’’ Woodward foresaw expanded use of polls to provide feedback for elected officials and to test public knowledge. Competition among polls would create pressure to minimize costs, but because such polls would play an important role in public ser-vice by providing a continuing referendum on policy and consumer issues, they would require standards of quality that would ‘‘justify the responsibilities which will increasingly be theirs.’’
After 3 days of discussion, the conference decided that a second meeting should be held in 1947. Harry Field was to lead it, but he died in a plane crash in France only a month later. Clyde Hart became direc-tor of NORC and organizer of the second conference.
For the second meeting, Hart and the sponsor-ing committee chose Williamstown, Massachusetts, in the northwest corner of the state. Julian Woodward assembled a program that drew 194 participants.
While the Central City meeting had envisioned an international confederation of existing survey research organizations, the Williamstown meeting took the unexpected step of forming a membership organization instead. A constitution was drafted, and the name
‘‘American Association for Public Opinion Research’’
was approved after assurances were made that an inter-national organization would be formed the next day.
Since that time, AAPOR and the World Association for Public Information Research (or WAPOR) have combined their meetings in even-numbered years.
Clyde Hart was elected by acclamation, and, in a secret ballot, Elmo Wilson, research director for CBS, was named vice president. Wilson’s election as president the following year began the AAPOR tradi-tion of alternating the presidency between the com-mercial and academic sectors. A 1951 revision of the constitution provided for the vice president to ascend automatically to the presidency.
Mission of AAPOR
One function of a professional association is to codify the profession’s self-definition by setting standards of ethics and technical competence. When AAPOR was founded, the main technical debate was between the advocates of quota sampling and those who preferred probability sampling. It quickly became clear that set-ting rules of scientific orthodoxy was not practical, but there was support for setting moral standards, par-ticularly regarding transparency in research methods.
The other key aspect of professionalism is advance-ment of the profession’s body of knowledge. The con-stitution adopted at Williamstown provided for the
‘‘dissemination of opinion research methods, techni-ques and findings through annual conferences and an official journal and other publications.’’ Public Opinion Quarterly had been started in 1937 at Princeton University, and AAPOR designated it the official jour-nal of the association, paying a fee to have its confer-ence proceedings published there. In 1968, the journal was acquired by Columbia University, and title was transferred to AAPOR in 1985.
Evolution and Application of the AAPOR Code
Several years passed without the association having to face a specific case or controversy. That ended in 1955, when Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, filed a complaint alleging biased ques-tions in a survey of General Motors employees. The Standards Committee of AAPOR shied away from dealing with the issue and sent a summary of the case to the membership so that ‘‘each is free to make his own evaluation.’’
Sidney Hollander, in his 1992 history of the Standards Committee, found the next critical point to occur in 1957, when members became concerned about a conflict between their duty to maintain the 20 American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)
confidentiality of survey respondents and possible demands for their names as legal evidence. Researchers would have a stronger case if respondent anonymity could be specified as a professional standard.
That need opened the door to the development of a formal code. Different versions were presented to the 1958 and 1959 meetings without success; finally a code was adopted at the 1960 annual meeting with responsibility for enforcement assigned to the Executive Council.
The standards became more specific in 1967 with the adoption of disclosure requirements—key pieces of information that should be revealed about any poll, for example, sample size, dates of interviewing, ques-tion wording, method of data collecques-tion, and identity of the sponsor of the survey. A test case arose in 1974 when survey findings supporting the Nixon adminis-tration were released without identifying the sponsor, which turned out to be the Republican National Committee. No action was taken because AAPOR lacked defined procedures for enforcing its rules.
That flaw was repaired under the leadership of California pollster Mervin Field during his tenure as Standards chair in 1974–1975. A detailed procedure was worked out to provide formal hearings, right of reply, and protection of the anonymity of accusers. In its first application, the procedure led to a finding that Opinion Research Corporation, in a survey report used to oppose establishment of a federal consumer advocacy agency, had made interpretations unsup-ported by the publicly released data.
One effect was to give journalists a tool to extract information from reluctant pollsters. Survey research-ers could not hide behind confidentiality obligations to their clients if to do so would conceal a violation of good practice. The code, which every member signs, contains this language: ‘‘If we become aware of the appearance in public of serious inaccuracies or distortions regarding our research, we shall publicly disclose what is required to correct these inaccuracies or distortions. . . .’’
A person need not be a member of AAPOR to lodge a complaint, nor does AAPOR limit its investi-gations to members. From 1975 to 1997, the organiza-tion used publicity as a sancorganiza-tion in the form of a press release issued after a council finding. The organiza-tion fell relatively silent after 1997, continuing to investigate complaints of code violations but impos-ing sanctions by private letter of censure with no pub-lic announcement.
Much of the recent effort at enforcing standards has been directed at pseudo-polls used to cover gener-ation of marketing leads, develop voter lists, or dis-seminate political falsehoods. The organization also turned its attention to education and promotion, hiring its first full-time public relations specialist in 2007.
Annual AAPOR Conference
The annual conference has traditionally included a plenary session on a current topic of broad interest, an address by the current president, formal paper presenta-tions organized by topic with discussants, round table discussions, teaching sessions, and informal network-ing. In the early days, conference organizers favored university settings for the sake of economy, but as the organization grew, resort hotels became the standard choice. Further growth, with conference attendance approaching 1,000, drew the meetings to metropolitan areas. By the early 21st century, AAPOR had become an organization of more than 2,000 members with annual revenue of nearly $1 million.
Philip Meyer See also Anonymity; Confidentiality; Disclosure; Ethical
Principles; Gallup, George; National Opinion Research Center (NORC); Probability Sampling; Pseudo-Polls;
Public Opinion Quarterly(POQ); Quota Sampling;
Roper, Elmo; Sheatsley, Paul; World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR)
Further Readings
American Association for Public Opinion Research:
http://www.aapor.org
Cahalan, D. (1992). Origins: The central city conference.
In P. Sheatsley & W. Mitofsky (Eds.), A meeting place:
The history of the American Association for Public Opinion Research(pp. 25–40). Lenexa, KS: American Association for Public Opinion Research.
Hollander, S. (1992). Survey standards. In P. Sheatsley &
W. Mitofsky (Eds.), A meeting place: The history of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (pp. 65–103). Lenexa, KS: American Association for Public Opinion Research.
Phillips Davison, W. (1992). AAPOR and the printed word.
In P. Sheatsley & W. Mitofsky (Eds.), A meeting place:
The history of the American Association for Public Opinion Research(pp. 241–248). Lenexa, KS: American Association for Public Opinion Research.
Sheatsley, P. (1992). The founding of AAPOR. In P. Sheatsley
& W. Mitofsky (Eds.), A meeting place: The history of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) 21
American Association for Public Opinion Research (pp. 41–62). Lenexa, KS: American Association for Public Opinion Research.