The Impact of Anonymity on Responses to Sensitive Questions

摘要: To estimate frequencies of behaviors not carried out in public view, researchers generally must rely on self-report data. We explored 2 factors expected to influence the decision reveal: (a) privacy (anonymity vs. confidentiality) and (b) normalization (providing information so that a behavior is reputedly commonplace or rare). administered questionnaire I55 undergraduates. For 79 respondents, we had corroborative regarding negative behavior: cheating. The variable an enormous impact; those who cheated, 25% acknowledged having done under confidentiality, but 74% admitted anonymity. Normalization no effect. There were also dramatic differences between anonymity confidentiality some our other questions, for which did have validation. Perhaps most fundamental issue survey research posed title Hyman’s (1944) paper, “Do they tell truth?’ quality data especially worrisome when question likely be viewed as embarrassing sensitive (Armacost, Hosseini, Morris, & Rehbein, 1991; Becker Bakal, 1970; Bradburn, Sudman, Blair, Stocking, 1978). Nevertheless, primary tool estimating