Research Tips

Social Desirability Bias

People want to feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, this creates a problem for researchers called “social desirability bias”. This is the tendency for people to give answers that they believe (consciously or unconsciously) will make them look good rather than those that are most accurate. For example, people tend to under-report their participation in activities that others might disapprove of like driving after consuming alcohol, and over-report their participation in activities that they think others would approve of such as recycling. If the questions being asked as part of a research project have answers that might be perceived as more or less socially acceptable, it’s important to be aware of social desirability bias and to build in procedures to prevent it if possible or to check for it if prevention is not possible.