Introduction

Respondents are social and emotional beings who cannot be forced to provide the information that is sought by the interviewer. The interviewer therefore needs to establish a relationship with the respondent that may improve the his or her willingness and ability to co-operate. Fowler and Mangione (1990) state, “We want a warm, professional relationship, one in which the interviewer is respected and trusted, but nonetheless the kind of professional who is accepting and nonjudgmental” (64).

In the literature on survey methodology, two types of interview styles tend to be distinguished: the task-oriented, or formal style, and the person-oriented, or socio-emotional style (Hyman 1954, Dijkstra 1983 and 1987). However, the literature does not make clear how a personoriented interview style is achieved. The person-oriented interviewer is generally described in evaluative terms, such as “personal,” “warm,” and “friendly,” or as “the sort of person to whom one might tell personal information that would be more difficult to tell to a stranger” (Fowler and Mangione 1990: 64). Such qualifications do not clarify what an interviewer is supposed to do in order to be perceived as personal or warm.

The literature on the effects of these two types of interview styles occasionally includes examples of interviewers' utterances that are supposed to reflect a personal style.