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Social Desirability Bias (SDB) is well-documented and frequently discussed in survey methodology leading to non-response as well as under- or over-reporting of certain characteristics. Over the past decades, researchers in sociology, psychology and related fields have developed indirect questioning techniques, such as the Crosswise Model and other randomized response techniques, the Item Count and Item Sum Techniques, to tackle this bias. All of these methods share that the inclusion of an anonymization procedure that protects the respondent in one way or another, enabling researchers to estimate the prevalence of the crucial characteristic in the sample.

A series of studies conducted over the last decades dealt with the applicability of these indirect questioning techniques, but yielded mixed results regarding success in tackling SDB. For example, these studies suggest that beneficial use of these techniques depends on the survey mode, the population and sample, general topic of the survey, or certain respondent characteristics. However, introducing randomization procedures to protect respondents, we know little about the respondents’ answering process in the field. It largely remains a black box. It is also difficult to understand respondents’ acceptance of these methods as it is difficult to assess whether or not respondents follow the instructions. Moreover, while RRTs (esp. the crosswise model) were initially evaluated very positively, current evidence indicates that the methods itself introduce unexpected and substantial bias related to complex and hard to process introductions and instructions. It is necessary to further encourage research that disentangles respondents’ answering process when indirect questioning techniques are used.

We particularly invite contributions to this session that address drawbacks and problems when applying indirect questioning techniques and that discuss possible solutions. This includes papers that systematically investigate under which conditions such indirect questioning techniques work and under which conditions they produce bias by design. We also welcome papers that test for compliance with and trust in indirect questioning techniques.