Vignette Experiment
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.
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Sources
- Atzmüller, C., & Steiner, P. M. (2010). Experimental Vignette Studies in Survey Research. Methodology, 6(3), 128–138. DOI: 10.1027/1614-2241/a000014 ↗
- Mutz, D. C. (2011). Population-Based Survey Experiments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691144528
- Aguinis, H., & Bradley, K. J. (2014). Best Practice Recommendations for Designing and Implementing Experimental Vignette Methodology Studies. Organizational Research Methods, 17(4), 351–371. DOI: 10.1177/1094428114547952 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Vignette Experiment (Experimental Vignette Design). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/political-science/vignette-experiment
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
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