Published on 24 June 2022 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou. Revised on 20 October 2022. Social desirability bias occurs when respondents give answers to questions that they believe will make them look good to others, concealing their true opinions or experiences. This type
of research bias often affects studies that focus on sensitive or personal topics, such as politics, drug use, or sexual behaviour. Social desirability bias is a type of response bias. Here, study participants have a tendency to answer questions in such a way
as to present themselves in socially acceptable terms, or in an attempt to gain the approval of others. It is especially likely to occur in self-report questionnaires, but it can also affect the validity of any type of behavioural research, particularly if the participants know they’re being observed. The risk of researchers or respondents influencing (biasing) a study
and its results, whether consciously or unconsciously, is inherent to conducting human-centred research. However, there are ways to detect and reduce bias in your research design if you know what to look for. Due to this, participants may downplay how often they visit a casino or use cocaine. In other words, they may give answers they consider to be socially
desirable in order to project a favourable image of themselves, or to avoid being perceived negatively. While social desirability bias may be caused by the nature or setting of the experiment, it’s important to remember that the desire to act in a culturally appropriate and acceptable manner is deeply rooted in human nature. For this reason, the mere
presence of a researcher or other participants may trigger some level of socially desirable responding. However, each individual respondent may also have their own reasons to want to be perceived a certain way (e.g., seeking approval or desiring praise), as well as expectations regarding how their behaviour will be evaluated by others. In general, there are two types of social desirability bias: This distinction is important because it accounts for both situational factors (related to a situation) and
personal factors (related to personality traits) that can result in socially desirable behaviour. While situational determinants can be influenced by the researcher, personal determinants are less easily controlled for. These can usually only be detected after the fact. Self-deceptive
enhancement occurs when the respondent believes something to be true when it is not. In this case, the respondent is neither aware of portraying themselves positively nor consciously trying to, but does so anyway. Here, the interviewee has formed an expectation about what the researcher or broader society will consider acceptable behaviour, and wants to show that they meet this standard. In this case, recycling is considered ‘good’ behaviour. As the interviewee considers themselves a good person, they may believe that they recycle more than they do. Impression managementOn the other hand, when people engage in impression management, they are not only aware of their overconfident self-appraisal, but are actually intentionally seeking to keep up with social or group norms in order to avoid negative evaluation or judgment. Example: Impression managementIn a survey asking respondents how often they have violated the law, a respondent could admit to more or fewer violations than they’ve actually committed.Here, a member of a youth gang may admit to many more violations than they committed in order to appear tough and world-wizened. Conversely, a teacher may admit to fewer violations in order to appear compliant. Social desirability bias is one of the most common sources of bias. It leads to over-reporting of socially desirable behaviours or attitudes, and under-reporting of socially undesirable behaviours or attitudes. As a result, reported answers will differ from true answers. Socially desirable responses can bias results in three main ways:
You need to consider social desirability bias when deciding what research design would work best for you. Example: Observational researchYou are interested in measuring instances of aggressive behaviour at a school playground.You expect that if you ask the children themselves, they are unlikely to admit to engaging in behaviours like hitting others. Even from a young age, they are aware that this is not socially acceptable. Similarly, if the children are aware that their behaviour is being observed, they will also probably behave differently. Taking this into account, you determine that observation is still the best method, but only so long as children don’t notice your presence (called covert observation). You plan to stand behind a tree at a school playground, jotting down any instances of hitting, kicking, or other aggressive behaviour. Example: Online surveyYou’re investigating the meat-consuming habits of students.If you interviewed them individually or in groups, chances are that your presence or other participants’ presence would trigger some level of socially desirable responding. If students know most of their peers don’t eat meat, some may feel embarrassed to admit to eating meat, thus reporting that they eat less than they actually do. You decide that an online survey guaranteeing respondents’ anonymity is a more suitable approach. Unfortunately, it’s often not possible to fully prevent or remove social desirability bias from your research. However, it is important to identify and control for the influence of this bias, starting with your research design. The first step here is to recognise and anticipate conditions where bias is particularly likely to occur. These can include:
How to reduce social desirability bias in your research designThere are a few strategies that you can use to help you reduce social desirability bias in your research design. AnonymityWhen asking about sensitive topics such as drug use or breaking the law, it’s important to reassure the study participants that their identities will be protected. If your results are appropriately anonymised, you may receive more truthful answers. Example: AnonymityYou are conducting interviews with convicted burglars. To protect their privacy and make sure they answer truthfully, you replace their real names with pseudonyms when transcribing the interviews.WordingBe wary of leading questions that can influence a respondent’s answer. The phrasing of a questionnaire item can trigger a socially desirable response, even when the respondent doesn’t have the tendency to respond in such a fashion. Example: WordingConsider the question ‘How challenging is it to learn how to diagnose patients using a distance learning method?’While this may seem like a well-formed question, notice that the wording already assumes that this diagnosis method is, by definition, challenging. Even if some respondents may not think so, they may feel like they need to imagine challenges in order to answer the question the way they perceive the interviewer wants them to. A better option could be ‘What were your experiences learning how to diagnose patients using a distance learning method?’ Self-administered questionnairesGiving respondents the opportunity to fill out a questionnaire at a time and place where they are undisturbed by others may lead to more truthful answers. As mentioned above, the presence of the interviewer or other participants may give them conscious or unconscious cues to answer in a socially desirable manner. Online surveys or questionnaires in particular are a great way to minimise socially desirable responses. However, note that the absence of an interviewer here limits the usefulness of self-administered surveys to cases where the questions are not complex. You are also limited to questions that are mainly closed-ended. Example: Self-administered questionnairesYou are investigating the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among sixth-form students. Your questionnaire consists of mostly closed-ended questions (e.g., ‘Have you ever been diagnosed with an STD?’).You suspect that asking students to complete the survey in class may trigger some of them to hide risky sexual behaviour, fearing that others will peek at their answers or ask them about it after class. Since this is a sensitive topic, you decide to send them the survey online and instruct them to fill it in at home. Indirect questioningIndirect questioning asks respondents to answer a set of structured questions from the perspective of another person or group. A typical indirect question asks respondents to make predictions about how someone like them would think or act in a particular situation. The underlying idea here is that indirect questions can reduce social desirability bias. As respondents feel that they are giving information about situations based on objective facts rather than their own opinions, they project their attitudes into the response situation.
Many people are reluctant to admit that what others think plays a role in their purchase decisions. The tendency to present oneself in the best possible light can lead respondents to underreport the importance of social approval if asked about it directly. However, asking indirect questions may lead respondents to project their real attitudes. Forced-choice itemsA forced-choice question requires the respondent to provide a specific answer, without giving a ‘nonresponse’ option such as ‘no opinion’, ‘don’t know’, ‘not sure’, or ‘not applicable’. Depending on the specific forced-choice design, respondents are asked either to:
What you could do instead is ask people to rank several items that possess an equal degree of social desirability. Here’s an example: Please rank the following possible work situations according to how
much they appeal to you. How to detect social desirability biasYou can detect and measure social desirability bias using two methods:
Social desirability scalesA number of social desirability (SD) scales have been developed in an effort to detect and measure socially desirable responses in data collection. These include the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Martin-Larsen Approval Motivation Scale, the Self-Deception Questionnaire (SDQ), and others. These scales involve a number of true or false statements concerning personal attitudes and traits. They describe socially desirable but statistically unlikely behaviours, such as ‘Before voting, I thoroughly investigate the qualifications of all candidates.’ Based on their answers, each respondent is assigned a social desirability score. Individuals who agree with these statements will have a higher score. After checking for correlation with social desirability scores, you can then use three tactics:
Rating of item desirabilityItem desirability is measured by asking subjects to rate an item (e.g., a question or a statement) on a desirability scale. For example, if ‘being happy’ is an item, subjects are asked to indicate how desirable being happy is to them. This rating is added to each of the questions in the survey. Keep in mind that adding a rating to each question can be an inconvenient method if there are many questions, as the length of the questionnaire is effectively doubled. Alternatively, using pre-existing content scales that have been examined for evidence of social desirability bias may aid in reducing the likelihood of encountering a response bias. Social desirability bias is the tendency for interview participants to give responses that will be viewed favourably by the interviewer or other participants. It occurs in all types of interviews and surveys, but is most common in semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews, and focus groups. Social desirability bias can be mitigated by ensuring participants feel at ease and comfortable sharing their views. Make sure to pay attention to your own body language and any physical or verbal cues, such as nodding or widening your eyes. This type of bias in research can also occur in observations if the participants know they’re being observed. They might alter their behaviour accordingly. Cite this Scribbr articleIf you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.
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