Measurement and control of response bias.

Psychologists have worried about the distortions introduced into standardized personality measures by social desirability bias. Survey researchers have had similar concerns about the accuracy of survey reports about such topics as illicit drug use, abortion, and sexual behavior. The article reviews the research done by survey methodologists on reporting errors in surveys on sensitive topics, noting parallels and differences from the psychological literature on social desirability. The findings from the survey studies suggest that misreporting about sensitive topics is quite common and that it is largely situational. The extent of misreporting depends on whether the respondent has anything embarrassing to report and on design features of the survey. The survey evidence also indicates that misreporting on sensitive topics is a more or less motivated process in which respondents edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer or to avoid repercussions from third parties.

https://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/images/a/a8/Tourangeau_SensitiveQuestions.pdf

Sensitive questions in surveys.

Publisher Summary This chapter tries to accomplish three objectives. Firstly, it defines the four motives and provides a selective review of research that indicates their prevalence. Secondly, it addresses the issue of the operation of four motives together to regulate self-evaluation. This chapter presents a conceptual framework for understanding the interplay of the four motives. This framework serves as a useful heuristic for consideration of potential moderators that govern the expression of the four motives. Finally, this chapter discusses several problems related to the self-evaluation motives that one believes are in need of empirical attention. This chapter serves to justify the claim that four basic self-evaluation motives have been demonstrated convincingly. Finally, the speculations of this chapter are meant to remind researchers that empirical work to date has taken certain aspects of the self-evaluation process for granted or has neglected other important issues.

Self-Evaluation: To Thine Own Self Be Good, To Thine Own Self Be Sure, To Thine Own Self Be True, and To Thine Own Self be Better

Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered.

Nonverbal behavior and self-presentation

Self-presentation may require self-regulation, especially when familiar or dispositional tendencies must be overridden in service of the desired impression. Studies 1-4 showed that self-presentation under challenging conditions or according to counter-normative patterns (presenting oneself modestly to strangers, boastfully to friends, contrary to gender norms, to a skeptical audience, or while being a racial token) led to impaired self-regulation later, suggesting that those self-presentations depleted self-regulatory resources. When self-presentation conformed to familiar, normative, or dispositional patterns, self-regulation was less implicated. Studies 5-8 showed that when resources for self-regulation had been depleted by prior acts of self-control, self-presentation drifted toward less-effective patterns (talking too much, overly or insufficiently intimate disclosures, or egotistical arrogance). Thus, inner processes may serve interpersonal functions, although optimal interpersonal activity exacts a short-term cost.

/pdf/self-regulation-and-self-presentation-regulatory-resource-31lvsx306o.pdf

Self-regulation and self-presentation: regulatory resource depletion impairs impression management and effortful self-presentation depletes regulatory resources.

The spheres of control scale: 10 yr of research

Recent research has addressed the role of attention in self-presentation. The present study examined the effects of attentional load on the positivity of self-descriptions. Subjects rated themselves on 30 traits presented on a microcomputer. To create an attentional load, we required subjects to monitor digits that appeared regularly on the screen. To manipulate the load, we varied the speed of digit presentation. Results show that high attentional load during trait rating increased the proportion and speed of desirable responses. In addition, high attentional load during trait ratings decreased later recognition memory for positive and negative traits but increased later recognition for neutral traits. These findings are used to explain a variety of documented effects of emotional arousal on cognitive processing.

Mark Van Selst

Papers

The spheres of control scale: 10 yr of research

Attentional load increases the positivity of self-presentation