Sensitive Questions and Social Desirability: Theory and Methods 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Felix Wolter (University of Konstanz) |
| Coordinator 2 | Professor Jochen Mayerl (Chemnitz University of Technology) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Henrik K. Andersen (Chemnitz University of Technology) |
| Coordinator 4 | Dr Justus Junkermann (University of Leipzig) |
Misreporting to sensitive survey questions is an age-old and notorious problem in survey methodology. Empirical evidence has shown that survey respondents tend to engage in self-protective behavior (e.g., by not answering truthfully) when it comes to questions on private issues, deviant behavior, or attitudes that do not conform with social norms (e.g. sex, health, income, illicit drug use, tax evasion or xenophobia). This leads to biased estimates and poor data quality. Although a large body of methodological literature addressing these issues does exist, many questions remain. Further, recent literature has called special questioning techniques such as the crosswise model or other randomized response techniques into question, for instance because they have been accused of generating false-positive bias.
This session aims at deepening our theoretical and practical knowledge with respect to why and when response- or social desirability bias occurs and how best to avoid it. In particular, we are interested in studies that (1) focus on explaining the psychological mechanisms that lead to misreporting on sensitive survey questions; (2) present conceptual or empirical research on special questioning techniques (e.g., randomized response and item count techniques, factorial surveys) aimed at mitigating response bias; (3) deal with statistical procedures to analyze data generated with special data collection methods; (4) address other topics related to social desirability and/or response bias, e.g., mixed methods of data collection, using “big data” and/or record linkage techniques, but also research ethics and data protection issues.