Moshagen Morten, Hilbig Benjamin E, Erdfelder Edgar, Moritz Annie
University of Mannheim, <location>Germany</location>
Exp Psychol. 2014 Jan 1;61(1):48-54. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000226.
Studies addressing sensitive issues often yield distorted prevalence estimates due to socially desirable responding. Several techniques have been proposed to reduce this bias, including indirect questioning, psychophysiological lie detection, and bogus pipeline procedures. However, the increase in resources required by these techniques is warranted only if there is a substantial increase in validity as compared to direct questions. Convincing demonstration of superior validity necessitates the availability of a criterion reflecting the "true" prevalence of a sensitive attribute. Unfortunately, such criteria are notoriously difficult to obtain, which is why validation studies often proceed indirectly by simply comparing estimates obtained with different methods. Comparative validation studies, however, provide weak evidence only since the exact increase in validity (if any) remains unknown. To remedy this problem, we propose a simple method that allows for measuring the "true" prevalence of a sensitive behavior experimentally. The basic idea is to elicit normatively problematic behavior in a way that ensures conclusive knowledge of the prevalence rate of this behavior. This prevalence measure can then serve as an external validation criterion in a second step. An empirical demonstration of this method is provided.
由于社会期望性应答，针对敏感问题的研究往往会得出失真的患病率估计值。已经提出了几种技术来减少这种偏差，包括间接询问、心理生理测谎和伪管道程序。然而，只有当与直接提问相比有效性有实质性提高时，这些技术所需资源的增加才是合理的。令人信服地证明更高的有效性需要有一个反映敏感属性“真实”患病率的标准。不幸的是，这样的标准很难获得，这就是为什么验证研究通常通过简单比较不同方法获得的估计值来间接进行。然而，比较验证研究只能提供薄弱的证据，因为有效性的确切提高（如果有的话）仍然未知。为了解决这个问题，我们提出了一种简单的方法，该方法允许通过实验测量敏感行为的“真实”患病率。基本思想是以一种确保对该行为患病率有确凿了解的方式引出规范上有问题的行为。然后，这种患病率测量可以在第二步中作为外部验证标准。本文提供了该方法的实证演示。
