Respondents who detect a test’s intent shift to socially desirable answering

Evidence

Respondents do not always tend to say “yes” on scales, and High RWAs do not always tend to yea-say more than Lows. My Ethnocentrism Scale provokes mostly “disagrees.” When participants sense that a test measures prejudice, they may adopt an overall response set to disagree in attempting to look unprejudiced. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 815

Categorization

• XREF: This is the classic social desirability / demand characteristics problem — parallels the impression management vs. self-deception distinction in the Paulhus Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding, and the broader literature on prestige bias in survey response. — connects to: Question wording shifts measured social trust by about twenty points — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1989
• SEED: Angle: ‘the chameleon respondent’ — how measures of prejudice are systematically corrupted by subjects’ self-presentation instincts, and what this means for every self-report poll on sensitive topics (racism polls, election polls, veggie-sticker surveys).