WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH? A VALIDATION STUDY ON DETERMINANTS OF RESPONSE BEHAVIOR IN SURVEYS

Based on two individual validation studies employing face-to-face interviews and a mail survey, this article investigates factors influencing the probability that respondents truthfully admit to having been convicted of a criminal offense. Overall, 63 percent of the 495 respondents stuck to the truth in the survey settings. The mail survey elicited significantly more truthful responses (67 percent) than the face-to-face survey (58 percent). Female, older, and better-educated respondents confessed their delinquent behavior less often than male, younger, and less-educated ones. Whereas the need for social approval did not show a significant effect on the probability of an honest answer when controlling for other variables, trait desirability did. Regarding the face-to-face survey, the more interviews an interviewer had successfully completed in the ongoing study, the higher the response quality of the interviewees. In the mail mode, a strong negative effect of time to response could be observed: the longer respondents waited before they sent back the questionnaire, the lower the validity of their answers.