One of the professors at the department where I work ( Joop Hox ) told me at our first meeting ever that good survey methodologists know their way around in the world of statistics. I think this saying should also go in the reverse order by the way, but I did take his advice seriously, and I am getting more and more interested in statistics, and specifically statistical modeling.
A good statistical model in my view should be able to answer a specific (complicated) research questions about our social world, in a relatively straightforward way.