The accuracy of opinion polls of consumers: issue of retrospective data obtaining

This article deals with the problem of accuracy of retrospective data obtained in the course of opinion polls of consumers. The paper defines the concepts of “telescoping” and “reverse telescoping”; the essence of these phenomena is the shift of dating of past events in the memories of the respondents. The content of the “accuracy error of publications” expression is discussed. The authors adduce five theses in favor of the high reliability of the retrospective data. The high level of reliability of these data is also confirmed by the results of the empirical research.