The procedures used to elicit formed consent in a national survey do not affect respondents' evaluations of the interview, with one exception. The exception is the assurance of confidentiality, which enhances evaluations of the majority of the aspects of the interview. However, appraisals were less favorable after a period of time. The study made on this subject was designed to shed light on one aspect of the debate of increasing concern about the rights of interviewees, which is whether and in what ways procedures designed to secure informed consent affect response rates and response quality in social surveys. The study examined 2 sets of reactions: 1. those obtained immediately following the interview of a self-administered questionnaire, and 2. those obtained on the telephone as part of a follow-up validation interview with a 20% subsample of the original respondents. Survey response rates could be construed optimistically, signifying ethical procedures incurred few costs, or pessimistically, signifying that people did not really listen.