social desirability bias
Summary
Social desirability bias is the tendency of respondents to answer in ways they think will be viewed favorably, overreporting good behavior and underreporting bad. It threatens the validity of self-report data, especially on sensitive topics, and is often reduced by anonymity or indirect questioning.
Detail
Meaning: Social desirability bias is a form of response bias in surveys, interviews and questionnaires. Participants shape answers to match social norms or to look good to the researcher or themselves, rather than to report what is true. People tend to overreport behaviors seen as desirable (voting, exercise, charitable giving) and underreport those seen as undesirable (drug use, prejudice, risky sex). It ties to impression management and to the pull of social norms.
On the MCAT: A passage describes a study built on self-reported data about a sensitive topic, and a question asks about a limitation or a way to improve validity. Expect to predict the direction of error: reported rates of stigmatized behavior are lower than true rates, and reported rates of admired behavior are higher. Common fixes are anonymous or online questionnaires, assurances of confidentiality, neutrally worded items, indirect questions, and objective measures such as lab tests or observation. Interviews face-to-face tend to show more of the bias than anonymous written surveys.
Common confusion: Students mix it up with sampling bias (who is chosen) and with the Hawthorne effect (behavior actually changes because people know they are observed). In social desirability bias, behavior may be unchanged; the report of it is distorted. It is also not the same as lying for personal gain, since it can be partly unconscious.
Sources
- Psychology (Myers)
- Social Psychology (Aronson, Wilson, Akert)
- Introduction to Sociology (Giddens et al.)
Written for the MCAT and checked before it was published. For study reference only. Spotted an error? Let us know.