Response Bias

Synonyms

Dissimulation; Respondent bias

Definition

A group of cognitive processes that prevent participants from providing accurate responses or cause them to alter their behavior in a given situation

Introduction

Response biases are a group of cognitive processes that prevent participants from providing honest or accurate responses to questions or cause them to alter their behavior from what they would normally do in a given situation. These response biases act as a source of error in data collection, sometimes obfuscating data slightly, sometimes completely invalidating them. As such, it is incredibly important to account for response biases as much as possible when constructing measures for studies and during the actual collection of data.

Response biases can stem from several sources. Sometimes participants intentionally alter their responses in order to deceive the researcher in some way. This can occur when participants wish to alter how they appear to the researcher, such as...