Uncovering a Blind Spot in Sensitive Question Research: False Positives Undermine the Crosswise-Model RRT

Höglinger, Marc; Diekmann, Andreas (2017). Uncovering a Blind Spot in Sensitive Question Research: False Positives Undermine the Crosswise-Model RRT. Political Analysis, 25(01), pp. 131-137. Oxford University Press 10.1017/pan.2016.5

[img]
Preview
Text
uncovering_a_blind_spot_in_sensitive_question_research_false_positives_undermine_the_crosswisemodel_rrt.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (318kB) | Preview

Validly measuring sensitive issues such as norm violations or stigmatizing traits through self-reports in surveys is often problematic. Special techniques for sensitive questions like the Randomized Response Technique (RRT) and, among its variants, the recent crosswise model should generate more honest answers by providing full response privacy. Different types of validation studies have examined whether these techniques actually improve data validity, with varying results. Yet, most of these studies did not consider the possibility of false positives, i.e. that respondents are misclassified as having a sensitive trait even though they actually do not. Assuming that respondents only falsely deny but never falsely admit possessing a sensitive trait, higher prevalence estimates have typically been interpreted as more valid estimates. If false positives occur, however, conclusions drawn under this assumption might be misleading. We present a comparative validation design that is able to detect false positives without the need for an individual-level validation criterion – which is often unavailable. Results show that the most widely used crosswise-model implementation produced false positives to a non-ignorable extent. This defect was not revealed by several previous validation studies that did not consider false positives - apparently a blind spot in past sensitive question research.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Sociology

UniBE Contributor:

Höglinger, Marc, Diekmann, Andreas

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

ISSN:

1047-1987

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Language:

English

Submitter:

Marc Höglinger

Date Deposited:

18 Jul 2017 15:10

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:02

Publisher DOI:

10.1017/pan.2016.5

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.94177

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/94177

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback