Misreporting

Misreporting is the deliberate or nondeliberate reporting of inaccurate or untruthful answers to survey questions. It is often referred to as response error. While survey researchers may attempt to gather accurate and truthful responses, respondents are not always willing or able to comply. Misreporting is a major concern for data collected about sensitive topics such as abortion, prejudice, sexual behavior, and income. Misreporting can also occur in the case of nonthreatening questions. Collecting inaccurate and untruthful responses limits the validity of conclusions that can be drawn from survey data.

Respondents may be motivated to deliberately misreport answers when asked sensitive topic questions about behaviors or attitudes for four main reasons: (1) social desirability concerns, (2) protection of the respondent's own self-concept, (3) embarrassment, and (4) fear that unauthorized disclosure may cause harm. When respondents answer questions based on one of these types of motivation, attitudes and behaviors that are socially desirable tend to be [Page 467]overreported (e.g. voting and volunteering), and socially undesirable attitudes and behaviors tend to be underreported (e.g. prejudice and criminal behavior).

Respondents may also misreport answers in a non-deliberate fashion, due to failure in one or all of the following cognitive processes: comprehension of the question, retrieval of relevant memories, judgment about the accuracy and appropriateness of the response, and mapping of relevant information on to a survey response category.