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Asking sensitive questions: The effects of type of referent and frequency wording in counterbiasing methods
Author(s) -
Raghubir Priya,
Me Geeta
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
psychology and marketing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.035
H-Index - 116
eISSN - 1520-6793
pISSN - 0742-6046
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1520-6793(199610)13:7<633::aid-mar1>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - referent , psychology , social psychology , social desirability bias , social desirability , response bias , population , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , environmental health
Respondents typically underreport socially undesirable behaviors and overreport socially desirable behaviors because of a social desirability bias. This not only leads to biased data, but also has important implications for health‐care marketers interested in encouraging people to perform in more socially desirable ways. This article investigates the effects of providing counterbiasing information on reducing this social desirability bias. Study 1 investigates whether information that a socially desirable behavior is performed less frequently than expected reduces the extent of overreporting. In Study 2, alternative methods of presenting information about the target behavior are studied. The data demonstrate that counterbiasing information is more effective when the referent is a population base rate versus an individual, and is moderated by the wording of the frequency, such that the counterbiasing is more effective when the frequency is worded as an actual number versus a percent. Implicaitons for questionnaire design and health‐care marketing are discussed. ©1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.