Students and Politics camouflaged its political questions to avoid social-desirability bias

Evidence

The interviewees were told that the research was concerned with `study problems’. The questions about involvement in politics were positioned as unobtrusively as possible, so as to prevent the interviewees from being tempted to pretend they were interested in politics in order to make a good impression. The transcripts of the interviews, in which the interviewees’ statements were recorded as literally as possible, formed the material for analysis. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2334

Categorization

• XREF: Methodological precursor to modern survey design techniques for reducing social-desirability bias; connects to Group Experiment’s indirect-projective methods described earlier in this book. — connects to: Research concealment affected how student political attitudes were measured — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2334; Political climate shapes which research questions scholars dare to ask; Hypothetical survey questions can validly test political choice theories when respondents answer honestly — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2409 (+1 more)
• SEED: A piece on how Frankfurt School empirical methods quietly pioneered questionnaire design tricks now standard in market research.

Broader Connections

• Political climate shapes which research questions scholars dare to ask #corroborates (0.80)
• Hypothetical survey questions can validly test political choice theories when respondents answer honestly #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2409