Respondent

A respondent is a person who is called upon to give a response to a communication or action initiated by someone else. The term is used across several distinct contexts: in legal proceedings, a respondent is the party who answers a petition, appeal or other application brought by another party, as opposed to the party who initiates it; in survey methodology, a respondent is the individual who answers the questions put to them in a survey or questionnaire; and in the field of psychological conditioning, the same word is used for a subject whose behavior is being measured in response to a stimulus. Across all three uses, the common thread is the same: a respondent is defined by their position as the one who reacts to something set in motion by another party, rather than the one who initiates it.