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Modeling Motivated Misreports to Sensitive Survey Questions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Ulf Böckenholt
Ulf Böckenholt*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Ulf Böckenholt, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. E-mail: u-bockenholt@northwestern.kellogg.edu
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Abstract

Asking sensitive or personal questions in surveys or experimental studies can both lower response rates and increase item non-response and misreports. Although non-response is easily diagnosed, misreports are not. However, misreports cannot be ignored because they give rise to systematic bias. The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling approach that identifies misreports and corrects for them. Misreports are conceptualized as a motivated process under which respondents edit their answers before they report them. For example, systematic bias introduced by overreports of socially desirable behaviors or underreports of less socially desirable ones can be modeled, leading to more-valid inferences. The proposed approach is applied to a large-scale experimental study and shows that respondents who feel powerful tend to overclaim their knowledge.

Keywords

response setsurvey researchsocially desirable respondingself-deceptive enhancementitem response models
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 515 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 The Psychometric Society

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