Center for Survey Research, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, ROC.
Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance "Giovanni Anania", University of Calabria, Italy.
Soc Sci Res. 2021 Jan;93:102475. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2020.102475. Epub 2020 Sep 24.
In social research, investigating sensitive, highly personal or embarrassing issues by means of standard survey techniques based on direct questioning leads to refusals to answer or false responses which, generally, flaw the validity of the analyses and produce incorrect inferences. To correct biases induced by nonresponse or underreporting of sensitive matters, Warner (1965) introduced an indirect questioning approach, known as the randomized response technique, which allows researchers to estimate the proportion of individuals with sensitive attributes or behaviors, while ensuring respondents' privacy protection. In this article, we consider the randomized response model proposed by Christofides (2003) and, through a simulation and an empirical study, compare different estimation methods for the prevalence of a sensitive attribute. Specifically, we discuss how the model has been implemented in a pilot study to collect data and derive maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimates for the proportion of non-heterosexuals aged 20 years or older for the Taiwanese population and for some subgroups of it by sex and age. Our analysis, and in particular the Bayesian approach, seems to meet the expectation of social researchers and experts of sexual behaviors. In fact, the produced estimates are higher than official findings in Taiwan obtained by direct questioning in face-to-face interviews and provide a more reliable picture of sexual identity in the country. Moreover, Bayesian estimates appear more accurate than those produced by the method of moment and the maximum likelihood method.
在社会研究中，通过基于直接提问的标准调查技术来研究敏感、高度个人化或尴尬的问题，会导致拒绝回答或虚假回答，这通常会影响分析的有效性，并产生不正确的推断。为了纠正由于非响应或对敏感问题的少报而产生的偏差，Warner（1965）引入了一种间接提问方法，称为随机响应技术，该技术允许研究人员估计具有敏感属性或行为的个体的比例，同时确保受访者的隐私得到保护。在本文中，我们考虑了 Christofides（2003）提出的随机响应模型，并通过模拟和实证研究，比较了不同的估计方法来估计敏感属性的流行率。具体来说，我们讨论了如何在一项试点研究中实施该模型，以收集数据，并为台湾人口和其某些按性别和年龄划分的子群体中 20 岁或以上的非异性恋者的比例得出最大似然和贝叶斯估计。我们的分析，特别是贝叶斯方法，似乎满足了社会研究人员和性行为专家的期望。事实上，得出的估计值高于台湾通过面对面访谈中的直接提问获得的官方发现，为该地区的性身份提供了更可靠的图景。此外，贝叶斯估计似乎比矩法和最大似然法得出的估计值更准确。
