Tourangeau Roger, Yan Ting
Joint Program in Survey Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Psychol Bull. 2007 Sep;133(5):859-83. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.133.5.859.
Psychologists have worried about the distortions introduced into standardized personality measures by social desirability bias. Survey researchers have had similar concerns about the accuracy of survey reports about such topics as illicit drug use, abortion, and sexual behavior. The article reviews the research done by survey methodologists on reporting errors in surveys on sensitive topics, noting parallels and differences from the psychological literature on social desirability. The findings from the survey studies suggest that misreporting about sensitive topics is quite common and that it is largely situational. The extent of misreporting depends on whether the respondent has anything embarrassing to report and on design features of the survey. The survey evidence also indicates that misreporting on sensitive topics is a more or less motivated process in which respondents edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer or to avoid repercussions from third parties.
心理学家一直担心社会期望偏差会给标准化人格测量带来扭曲。调查研究人员也对诸如非法药物使用、堕胎和性行为等主题的调查报告的准确性有类似担忧。本文回顾了调查方法学家在敏感主题调查中关于报告误差的研究，指出了与社会期望心理文献的异同。调查研究的结果表明，关于敏感主题的错误报告相当普遍，而且很大程度上取决于具体情况。错误报告的程度取决于受访者是否有令人尴尬的事情要报告以及调查的设计特点。调查证据还表明，对敏感主题的错误报告或多或少是一个有动机的过程，在这个过程中，受访者会编辑他们报告的信息，以避免在采访者面前尴尬或避免第三方的影响。
