From questionnaire to interview in survey research: Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle in interwar Vienna

Abstract

In interwar Vienna, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues developed an approach to survey research that used the questionnaire and the direct, face-to-face interview to gather data about subjective experience for aggregative analysis. For these young researchers, the questionnaire-based interview emerged from a contradictory set of Central European intellectual traditions and political concerns. Enthusiasm on the political left for quantification and the gathering of social data encouraged survey research; yet, local political allies and intellectual mentors also opposed the study of individual attitudes and the quantitative aggregation of such material. Academic psychology legitimized the use of “introspection” and facilitated the extension of this method to populations of untrained subjects. The methodological concept of the “model” helped overcome the Verstehen/Erklären dichotomy within debates over the proper methods of the human and social sciences. This article examines methodological and philosophical statements, study designs, and questionnaires to explain how the interview gained particular importance within this setting.