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      When to Worry about Sensitivity Bias: A Social Reference Theory and Evidence from 30 Years of List Experiments

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      American Political Science Review
      Cambridge University Press (CUP)

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          Abstract

          Eliciting honest answers to sensitive questions is frustrated if subjects withhold the truth for fear that others will judge or punish them. The resulting bias is commonly referred to as social desirability bias, a subset of what we label sensitivity bias. We make three contributions. First, we propose a social reference theory of sensitivity bias to structure expectations about survey responses on sensitive topics. Second, we explore the bias-variance trade-off inherent in the choice between direct and indirect measurement technologies. Third, to estimate the extent of sensitivity bias, we meta-analyze the set of published and unpublished list experiments (a.k.a., the item count technique) conducted to date and compare the results with direct questions. We find that sensitivity biases are typically smaller than 10 percentage points and in some domains are approximately zero.

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          Most cited references65

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          The Psychology of Survey Response

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            Randomized response: a survey technique for eliminating evasive answer bias.

            S L Warner (1965)
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              An inkblot for attitudes: affect misattribution as implicit measurement.

              Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
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                Journal
                American Political Science Review
                Am Polit Sci Rev
                Cambridge University Press (CUP)
                0003-0554
                1537-5943
                August 03 2020
                : 1-19
                Article
                10.1017/S0003055420000374
                0d6bcf54-b8e1-4c30-8e9a-71bde48b9a9e
                © 2020

                http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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