Social desirability refers to the tendency for people to answer survey questions

Question

Social desirability refers to the tendency for people to answer survey questions in the way that they feel is most socially appropriate and is not based on how they actually behave.

For example if we were to ask a random sample of teenagers how often they smoke marijuna-some teens will underexaggerate out of fear they will be punished, and some might overexaggerate to appear cooler to their peers. The fact that few would be answering honestly would be an example of social desirability.

How much of an impact do you feel social desirabilty might have on the reliability and validity of research into criminal justice? Do you feel this impact is greatest for online, telephonic, or face to face survey techniques?

Explanation / Answer

As far as criminal justice and related areas are concerned, people as sample audience will have a tendency to talk ethical and high moral that will put them into a good picture. Though, they may differ from their actual preferences. Here, social desirability plays an important role. Thus, actual data are not gathered that negatively affects the reliability and validity of the research. It will certainly affect the results or findings of the research.

Impact of social desirability is maximum when face to face to survey technique is used as a person is identified directly. In other methods such as online survey or email survey, the respondents can hide their real identities and truth can come out. Thus, the impact of social desirability will be relatively less.

Though, face to face survey can also give true results whey anonymity is promised and real identity is not disclosed.

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