Compare methods

	Vignette Experiment	Conjoint Survey Experiment	Factorial Survey Experiment	Survey Experiment
Field	Political Science	Political Science	Political Science	Political Science
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	—	2014	1982	2011
Originator	Survey and social-psychological research traditions	Jens Hainmueller, Daniel Hopkins, Teppei Yamamoto	Peter H. Rossi and collaborators	Experimental political science; synthesized by Diana Mutz
Type	Randomized experiment using short described scenarios	Multi-attribute forced-choice survey experiment with design-based causal estimands	Multi-factor randomized vignette experiment	Randomized experiment embedded in a survey
Seminal source	Atzmüller, C., & Steiner, P. M. (2010). Experimental Vignette Studies in Survey Research. Methodology, 6(3), 128–138.	Hainmueller, J., Hopkins, D. J., & Yamamoto, T. (2014). Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments. Political Analysis, 22(1), 1–30.	Wallander, L. (2009). 25 Years of Factorial Surveys in Sociology: A Review. Social Science Research, 38(3), 505–520.	Mutz, D. C. (2011). Population-Based Survey Experiments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691144528
Aliases	Vignette study, Experimental vignette, Scenario experiment, Text-vignette experiment	Causal conjoint, Forced-choice conjoint experiment, AMCE conjoint, Conjoint experiment	Factorial survey, Factorial survey approach, Multi-factor vignette survey, Rossi vignette method	Population-based survey experiment, Survey-embedded experiment, Question-wording experiment, Framing experiment
Related	3	4	3	4
Summary	A vignette experiment presents respondents with a short, carefully constructed description of a person, situation, or scenario — a vignette — in which one or more features are experimentally manipulated, and then asks for a judgment, attitude, or intended action. By randomizing which version of the scenario each respondent reads, the researcher isolates the causal effect of each manipulated feature on the elicited judgment, combining the realism of a concrete scenario with the causal leverage of an experiment.	A conjoint survey experiment presents respondents with profiles — of candidates, immigrants, policies, or products — described by several attributes whose levels are independently randomized, and asks respondents to choose between or rate the profiles. Hainmueller, Hopkins, and Yamamoto's 2014 framework places this design on a rigorous causal footing, defining the average marginal component effect (AMCE) as the design-based causal effect of an attribute level, averaged over the randomization distribution of all other attributes. It lets political scientists estimate the relative causal weight of many decision factors simultaneously from realistic, multidimensional choices.	A factorial survey experiment, often simply called a factorial survey, asks respondents to judge short descriptions — vignettes — whose multiple features are fully crossed and randomly varied. By factorially combining many dimensions, each at several levels, the design generates a large universe of vignettes; respondents rate a random sample of them, and regression of the ratings on the dimension levels recovers the independent causal effect of each feature on judgment. It scales the single-scenario vignette experiment up to many simultaneously manipulated attributes.	A survey experiment embeds a randomized experiment inside a survey: respondents are randomly assigned to different versions of a question, frame, or stimulus, and their answers are compared to estimate a causal effect. By combining the internal validity of randomization with the representative samples and rich measurement of survey research, survey experiments — especially population-based ones — let political scientists draw causal inferences about how information, framing, or message attributes shape public attitudes and behavior.