Self-Report Decay Rate

Self-Report Decay Rate is the framework for estimating how fast a piece of research evidence loses predictive value after collection. Stated preference decays fastest: a survey answer about intent holds for weeks, a behavioral recording holds for quarters, and a structured observation of what people actually did holds longest. Agencies that treat every input as equally durable end up rebuilding strategy decks on stale self-report while the behavioral record underneath has already shifted. The practical move is to date-stamp every insight with its decay class before it enters a client deliverable, then set a refresh interval per class. A conversational capture tool such as Typeform is efficient for stated-preference work, but its output should carry a shorter shelf life than a Hotjar-style session recording of the same funnel. With 69% of marketers publishing more AI-generated content than last year, the volume of cheap self-report keeps rising while its marginal predictive value falls, which makes decay classification a defensible differentiator rather than a research nicety.