Respondent

Arespondentis a person who is called upon to issue a response to a communication made by another. The term is used in legal contexts, insurvey methodology,and in psychological conditioning.

Legal usage

Inlegal usage,this specifically refers to thedefendantin alegal proceedingcommenced by a petition, or to anappellee,or the opposing party, in anappealof a decision by an initial fact-finder.

In theUnited States Senate,the two sides in animpeachment trialare called the management and the respondent.

Psychology usage

Inpsychology,respondent conditioning is a synonym forclassical conditioningorPavlovian conditioning.Respondent behavior specifically refers to the behavior consistently elicited by a reflexive or classically conditioned stimulus.

Survey usage

Inpopulation surveyandquestionnaire pretesting,a respondent is aresearch participantreplying with answers or feedback to a survey.Depending on the survey questions and context, respondent answers may represent themselves as individuals, a household or organization of which they are a part, or as a proxy to another individual.

Other usages

In non-legal or informal usage, the term refers to one who refutes or responds to a thesis or an argument. Incross-cultural communication,the second person responding to the meaning or message from an original source which has beencontextualisedor decoded for the understanding of respondents asrecipients or hearersof the message occurring from a different cultural context.