Response bias def & examples correct answers Affects validity! Harms the psychometric quality.
Can be affected by the tests content, format, context, deliberate efforts to distort, unconscious factors
Includes:
• Acquiescence Bias
• Extreme and Moderate Responding
• Social Desirability
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PSYC3302 Week 7 – 11 || Already Passed.
Response bias def & examples correct answers Affects validity! Harms the psychometric quality.
Can be affected by the tests content, format, context, deliberate efforts to distort, unconscious
factors
Includes:
• Acquiescence Bias
• Extreme and Moderate Responding
• Social Desirability
• Malingering
• Random Responding
• Guessing
Acquiescence bias correct answers When someone agrees regardless of truth ("yay-say" bias)
e.g. saying yes to that you like your job and find it boring.
All positively keyed items worsens this.
Phrasing is important.
Makes it hard to know if high levels of constructs exist.
Also correlates diff tests which suffer from this (spurious correlations)
Can also be nonaquiescence (Nay-say)
Factors increasing acquiescence: 1. Ambig items, 2. Long items , 3. Large num of items
(basically attention factors)
Extreme and Moderate Responding bias correct answers Tendency to either USE or AVOID
EXTREME items
- It generates artificial differences even if you have the same scores as another person.
- Can lead to inaccurate conclusions
- Note, using an extreme option isnt bad just a problem if identical people do the same pattern
(Spurious correlations)
Social Desirability bias correct answers Also known as 'faking good' is where you respond to try
and seem socially appealing regardless of actual answer.
- Diminish validity, less likely to affect reliability (because such people likely to be influenced in
consistent way)
Factors contributing to it:
1. Test content (some more social than others)
2. Test context (anonymous means less likely)
3. Personality (need for autonomy correlates -vely with social desirability responses)
Implications for applied psychology (e.g. want a job) and behavioural research (gives rise
spurious correlations)
Why do people respond in a socially desirable way? correct answers Two processes: impression
management and self-deception
1. Impression management = Conscious process where people intentionally do it to help them.
Psyc state depending on situational demands/context
, 2. Self-deception = Unconscious process where people believe things and just overestimate.
Correlate w narcissism. Trait stable across time and context. (thus some more predisposed)
Malingering bias correct answers Opposite problem to social desirability.
'faking bad' where you fake behaviour. Usually if they stand to benefit from results from survey.
E.g. Criminal competency, worker compensation, personal injury claims, legal issues
Quite common - 7% to 27% of general psychological evaluations and between 31% to 45% of
forensic evaluations
Careless or Random Sampling Bias correct answers Due to carelessness or lack of motivation.
- Makes results meaningless
- Often if test is long or boring or person doesn't care
Methods for coping with response bias correct answers 1. Manage test context
2. Manage test content/scoring
3. Use specially designed 'bias' tests
These all try to: minimise existence, minimise effects and detect it/intervene if possible
Minimising the Existence of Bias by: 1. Managing
Testing Context correct answers - Convince anonymous (increases honesty but may make people
careless)
- Avoid fatigue, stress, distraction and frustration
- 'Bogus pipeline' ie tell people you know if its bias
Minimising the Existence of Bias by: 2. Manage test content/scoring correct answers Some main
strategies:
1. Write clear, concise, unambig items
2. Write neutral desirability items
3. Forced choice formats including equally socially desirable or only prove Y/N removed
extrematies
4. Balanced scales. Equal pos and neg keyed
5. Differential scoring e.g. -ve marks for wrong answers
Minimising the Existence of Bias by: 3. Use specially designed 'bias' tests correct answers Some
inventories include so called 'validity scales' to indicate bias during the test.
e.g. Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MMPI) has L(ie) scale where high scores indicate
denial of common characteristics showing social desirability bias and an F scale where high
scores are rarely endorsed so suggest bias.
- Can exclude people caught of bias or interpret cautiously or 'correct' them
- e.g. Dot counting test shows malingering (those trying to be dumb)
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