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The Statistical Analysis of Misreporting on Sensitive Survey Questions

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  • Eady, Gregory

Abstract

What explains why some survey respondents answer truthfully to a sensitive survey question, while others do not? This question is central to our understanding of a wide variety of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, but has remained difficult to investigate empirically due to the inherent problem of distinguishing those who are telling the truth from those who are misreporting. This article proposes a solution to this problem. It develops a method to model, within a multivariate regression context, whether survey respondents provide one response to a sensitive item in a list experiment, but answer otherwise when asked to reveal that belief openly in response to a direct question. As an empirical application, the method is applied to an original large-scale list experiment to investigate whether those on the ideological left are more likely to misreport their responses to questions about prejudice than those on the right. The method is implemented for researchers as open-source software.

Suggested Citation

  • Eady, Gregory, 2017. "The Statistical Analysis of Misreporting on Sensitive Survey Questions," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 241-259, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:polals:v:25:y:2017:i:02:p:241-259_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Chuang, Erica & Dupas, Pascaline & Huillery, Elise & Seban, Juliette, 2021. "Sex, lies, and measurement: Consistency tests for indirect response survey methods," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    2. Chapkovski, Philipp & Schaub, Max, 2022. "Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 1-6.

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