300272 Quantitative Methoden: Social Desirability (S) (WiSe 2018/2019)

It is a well known phenomenon that respondents tend to give dishonest and social desirable answers when sensitive issues (e.g. criminal behavior) are surveyed. Although it is not always the case that the data is systematically biased by social desirable resonding, the tendency to edit answers according to self- or other-deception can influence the validity of the surveyed data at least partly. This phenomenon is tangled theoretically and empirically in order to understand, anticipate and hence to reduce this response bias.
Theoretical foundations serve as an opportunity to avoid Social Desirability in the survey itself. Furthermore those foundation can help to develop instruments for the direct measurement of social desirable tendencies and to detect invalid answering patterns afterwards. Additionally, indirect measurement techniques are seen as a tool to support honest answers.
In the first part of the course, different theoretical ideas to understand Social Desirability will be thematised and discussed. The second part draws on this foundations and focusses on recent research concerning direct and indirect measurement techniques (randomized response techniques, crosswise-model, factorial survey) and the critical examination of those attempts to anticipate Social Desirability.