Sensitive Questions and Social Desirability - Theory and Methods

敏感问题和社会期望——理论与方法

• 批准号: 387002847
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jochen Mayerl
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Soziologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/387002847?language=en
• 关键词: Sensitive; Questions; Social; Desirability; Theory

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.

该项目位于调查方法的研究领域内，涉及调查访谈中的测量误差。我们专注于回答调查问题时，调查受访者的误报（显示“不正确”而不是“真实”的值）造成的反应偏差。在这方面，该项目主要关注的是，一方面，关于虚构问题的意见表达，即：例如，表达与实际上不存在的问题有关的观点或态度。另一方面，我们关注所谓的敏感问题（例如药物滥用或异常行为），受访者往往否认社会不良特征，并高估社会可取的特征。该项目的总体目标是为调查中的反应偏差主题提供理论和方法基础研究。在这样做的过程中，我们希望有助于理论上理解的原因和机制造成的反应偏差，并获得有关的“最佳实践”和提问技术产生有效的调查数据的系统知识。理论研究议程的中心点是框架选择理论作为行动的一般理论在调查中反应行为的阐述和应用。例如，在这方面的一个重要问题是，误报是否以及何时是由认知反思-计算过程导致的，还是自动自发地发生的。方法研究的兴趣包括，首先，在评估一般设计方面（访问者的指示，自发或反射回答调查问题）有积极或消极的影响数据的有效性。第二，我们感兴趣的项目计数技术（ICT），特别是在调查采访中提出敏感问题的匿名提问技术的新变种的性能。最近的进一步发展的信息和通信技术正在测试和经验评估方面的问题是否完全匿名化的响应过程中减少误报相比，标准的提问techniques.Our研究方法包括在进行大规模的电话调查（N=3000），并在进行一个元分析的信息和通信技术的性能。在调查中，我们首先采用了经典的反应偏差研究方法，如测量被调查者的认可需要;其次，反应延迟作为被调查者认知信息处理模式的一种测量方法，并进行了记录和分析;第三，调查将包含实验方法分裂，以考察不同的问题设计对反应行为的影响。我们还通过实验研究了ICT新变体的性能。元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敏感问题的回答偏差方面的功效的研究。