Doctoral Dissertation Research: Overreporting of Socially Desirable Behavior in Surveys

威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校这个项目研究了传统抽样调查中过度报道社会期望行为的问题。通常被忽视或简单地认为是测量错误--比如过度报告--可能会导致不准确和误导性的结果。然而，当被直接调查时，它们可以为研究人员提供一个更好地理解人类行为的机会。通过估计两种不同调查模式的测量结果之间的差异，本研究以宗教活动参加人数为样本，对调查结果进行了检验。最近的研究对教堂出席率的常见调查指标的有效性提出了质疑，并提出了一些问题，即美国公民与其他发达国家的公民相比如何：是否只有美国人夸大了教堂出席率，或者加拿大人和欧洲人也夸大了这些行为的频率？这项研究使用了跨越50年和14个国家的多个数据集，比较了出席人数的趋势，以阐明这些问题。更重要的是，它将根据三个相关的假设来探讨不同国家之间过度报道的原因：(1)传统调查问题的性质导致调查访谈中的身份启动，(2)允许过度报道被解释为社会期望认同的重要性的函数，(3)将国家之间过度报道的差异解释为不同国家宗教认同重要性的差异。然后，美国的宗教例外论将被重新定义，而不是根据实际行为，而是根据宗教认同的持续高度重要性来定义。这些高度的重要性将被认为是美国人过度报道的异常高水平的原因。这种方法还有助于社会学方法论的发展：(1)以新颖的方式使用时间日记数据，从而突出时间日记是一种灵活而强大的资源，尽管未得到充分利用；(2)以创新的方式应用匹配方法，以便能够在个人层面进行分析，结合两种模式的估计。这项研究对测量误差的关注将揭示一个经常被忽视但潜在的关键问题的一角。无效的措施不仅可能导致错误的统计推断，还可能导致糟糕的政策决策。因此，调查测量的改进，如本研究中调查的那些，不仅使社会科学家受益，而且通过提高用于决策的数据的质量，使政策制定者和利益攸关方受益。本论文的研究成果将通过多种场所和形式进行传播。社会科学各学科的学术和非学术受众可能会对这一发现感兴趣。

SES-0824759John DelamaterPhilip BrennerUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonThis project studies the overreporting of socially desirable behavior in traditional sample surveys. Often ignored or simply assumed away, measurement errors -- like overreporting -- can lead to inaccurate and misleading findings. However, when directly investigated, they can provide researchers with an opportunity to better understand human behavior. Estimating overreporting as the difference between measures from two different survey modes, this study examines the survey artifact using religious service attendance as a sample case. Recent work has challenged the validity of common survey measures of church attendance and raised questions about how US citizens compare to rest of the developed world: are Americans alone in their overreporting of church attendance, or do Canadians and Europeans exaggerate the frequency of these behaviors as well? Using multiple datasets spanning five decades and fourteen countries, this study compares trends in attendance to shed light on these questions. More importantly, it will pursue the cause of differential overreporting between countries in light of three related hypotheses: (1) the nature of traditional survey questions lead to identity priming during the survey interview, which (2) allows overreporting to be explained as a function of the importance of socially desirable identities that (3) explains the variation in overreporting between nations as the difference in religious identity importance from country to country. American religious exceptionalism will then be redefined not in terms of actual behavior, but rather in terms of continuing high levels of religious identity importance. These high levels of importance will be argued to be the cause of exceptionally high levels of American overreporting. This approach also contributes to the development of sociological methodology by: (1) using time diary data in a novel way, thereby highlighting the time diary as a flexible and powerful, although underutilized, resource; and (2) applying matching methods in an innovative way to allow analysis at the individual level, combining estimates from the two modes.Broader impacts. This study's focus on measurement error will illuminate one corner of an oft-ignored but potentially critical problem. Invalid measures can lead not only to faulty statistical inferences, but also poor policy decisions. Therefore, improvements in survey measurements, like those investigated in this study, benefit not only socialscientists, but also policy makers and stakeholders by improving the quality of data being used in decision making. Research findings from this dissertation will be disseminated using multiple venues and formats. Findings will be of potential interest to academic and non-academic audiences across the spectrum of social science disciplines.