Cheating in Indirect Questioning Sensitive Surveys |
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| Coordinator 1 | Professor Pier Francesco Perri (University of Calabria, Italy) |
In surveys on highly personal, sensitive, or potentially incriminating topics, conventional direct questioning methods are known to elicit high rates of nonresponse and dishonest answers, thus impairing data quality and biasing prevalence estimates of the population characteristics of interest. While this issue cannot be entirely eliminated, it can potentially be mitigated by increasing respondents' willingness to cooperate.
Following this rationale, indirect questioning techniques (IQTs) have recently gained popularity as an effective means for obtaining truthful responses to sensitive questions by guaranteeing participants the confidentiality of their answers. Importantly, the validity of most IQTs depends on two key assumptions about participants' behavior, namely that they (1) are completely honest in their responses, and (2) fully understand and accurately follow the instructions of the chosen method. However, empirical evidence suggests that even when granted full confidentiality by an IQT, some participants "cheat" the procedure either by providing a self-protective response due to insufficient trust towards the method, or by noncompliance with the instructions due to insufficient understanding. Such cheating behaviors introduce additional sources of bias that must be controlled for if accurate estimates are to be obtained.
The current session aims to improve both the theoretical and practical understanding of cheating behavior in sensitive surveys. We welcome contributions that: (1) improve established techniques to reduce cheating behavior; (2) propose new methods for detecting cheaters; (3) adjust prevalence estimates for sensitive characteristics by accounting for cheating behavior; and (4) distinguish between intentional cheating and unintentional noncompliance with instructions.