Sensitive Questions and Social Desirability - Theory and Methods

该项目属于调查方法的研究领域，涉及调查访谈中的测量误差。我们专注于调查受访者在回答调查问题时因错误报告而导致的回答偏差(表现出“不正确”而不是“正确”的价值观)。该项目对此主要感兴趣的是，一方面，对虚构的问题发表意见，即表达与实际不存在的问题有关的意见或态度。另一方面，我们专注于所谓的敏感问题(例如药物滥用或越轨行为)，即受访者往往否认社会上不受欢迎的特征，并夸大社会上希望看到的特征。该项目的总体目标在于为调查中的反应偏差这一主题提供理论和方法的基础研究。通过这样做，我们希望有助于从理论上理解造成回答偏差的原因和机制，并获得关于哪些“最佳做法”和哪些提问技巧产生有效调查数据的系统知识。理论研究议程的中心是框架选择理论的阐述和应用，框架选择理论作为一般的行动理论，在调查中的反应行为。例如，这方面的一个重要问题是，错误报告是否以及何时是由认知反思计算过程造成的，还是自动自发发生的。方法论研究的兴趣在于，首先，评估总体设计方面(面试者的指导、对调查问题的自发或反思性回答)对数据有效性有积极或消极的影响。其次，我们对项目计数技术(ICT)的新变种的表现感兴趣，这是一种专门为在调查访谈中提出敏感问题而开发的匿名提问技术。关于回答过程的完全匿名化是否比标准提问技术减少误报这一问题，对信通技术最近的进一步发展进行了测试和实证评估。我们的研究方法包括进行大规模电话调查(N=3000)和对信通技术的业绩进行荟萃分析。在调查中，我们首先采用了经典的反应偏差研究方法，如测量受访者的认可需求；其次，记录和分析了作为受访者认知信息加工模式的衡量标准的反应潜伏期；第三，调查将包含实验方法，以考察不同问题设计对反应行为的影响。我们还通过实验研究了ICT的新变种的性能。荟萃分析最好汇集所有已发表和未发表的关于信息和通信技术在避免对敏感问题的回答偏见方面的有效性的研究。

The project is situated within the research area of survey methodology and deals with measurement error in survey interviews. We focus on response bias resulting from misreporting by survey respondents (evincing of "incorrect" instead of "true" values) when answering survey questions. What the project is mainly interested in with respect to this are, on the one hand, opinion expressions on fictitious issues, i. e., expressing an opinion or attitude related to issues that actually do not exist. On the other hand, we focus on so-called sensitive questions (for instance on substance abuse or deviant behavior), where respondents often deny socially undesirable characteristics and overreport socially desirable ones.The overall objective of the project consists in providing theoretical and methodical basic research to the topic of response bias in surveys. In so doing, we wish to contribute to the theoretical understanding of the reasons and mechanisms causing response bias, and to gain methodical knowledge about which "best practice" and which questioning techniques yield valid survey data. The central point of the theoretical research agenda is an elaboration and application of frame-selection-theory, as a general theory of action, to response behavior in surveys. An important question with this regard is, for example, whether and when misreporting result from a cognitively reflective-calculating process or instead occurs automatically-spontaneously. The methodical research interest consists, first, in assessing what general design aspects (interviewer instructions, spontaneous or reflective answering of survey questions) have a positive or negative impact on data validity. Second, we are interested in the performance of new variants of the item-count-technique (ICT), an anonymizing questioning technique especially developed for posing sensitive questions in survey interviews. Recent further developments of ICT are being tested and empirically evaluated with regard to the question whether the complete anonymization of the response process reduces misreporting as compared to standard questioning techniques.Our research methods consist in carrying out a large-scale telephone survey (N=3000) and in conducting a meta-analysis on the performance of ICT. In the survey, we employ, first, classic methods of research on response bias like measuring respondents' need for approval; second, response latencies as a measure for the respondents' cognitive information processing mode are recorded and analyzed; third, the survey will contain experimental method splits in order to investigate the effects of different question designs on response behavior. We also experimentally investigate the performance of new variants of ICT. The meta-analysis will pool preferably all published and unpublished research on the efficacy of ICT in avoiding response bias with sensitive questions.