Quote:
Originally Posted by 4691mls
This is what I wondered about too.
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The question asked for the respondent's
personal definition and included an "other" option, allowing as much specificity as could be fitted in 100 characters, precisely to accommodate the wide variety of responses possible. I'm used to answering "other" to that very question in surveys because of my own background. Listing all 190+ member states of the UN as separate ethnic/cultural options seemed a mite unwieldy, and would definitely have pushed the survey's average completion time well past the 90 seconds or so that it took those who completed it.
It seems that with very few exceptions exceptions those most troubled by or who had the most trouble with that question all reside in North America, and almost all are people who choose to self-identify as "white". The question followed a pattern that is standard in most non-country-specific global surveys I've participated in before, including many run by US-based research companies. The ardor of the reactions it has caused has been quite fascinating as an unexpected sociological study all on its own.