When responding to survey questions, participants use cognitive processes that help them find the answers: 1, comprehension: they focus on a question and interpret it, 2, retrieval: they search for relevant beliefs in their memory, 3, judgement: they integrate them to final opinion, 4: response: they adjust the opinion according to potential response categories (Tourangeau et al. 2000). There is an ongoing discussion, which type of scale helps the participants more in their effort when answering survey questions. On the one hand, full labeling of response scales provides more information how to interpret the scales, which means lesser cognitive load and more precise answers (Arce-Ferrer 2006; Johnson et al. 2005; Weng 2004). On the other hand, end labeling of response scales proves to be easier to remember and does not suffer from language ambiguity (Krosnick – Fabrigar 1997).

In our experiment, we focused on a question whether different types of scales provide different type of answers and results. We had designed split-ballot experiment that we integrated as a part of International Social Survey Programme 2018 module „Religion“ in Slovakia. Participants (N=1470) were randomly divided into two groups and as a part of a survey they both answered the question „In the last five years, how often have you or a member of your immediate family come across a public official who hinted they wanted, or asked for, a bribe or favour in return for a service?“.

One group of participants chose from five-point full labeled scale (1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = occasionally, 4 = quite often, 5 = very often), the other one was asked to choose from five-point scale that was labeled only at the ends (1 = never, 5 = very often). Our results showed, that there were no significant differences between these two groups.

This conclusion it is in contrast previous research, which suggests that end labeling invokes extreme response style, meaning that participants are prone to choose extreme endpoints on rating scale (Moors et al. 2014). However, our experiment results indicate that when asked about their experience, in this case with corruption, the type of scale does not influence the answers of participants.