Social desirability and self-reported health risk behaviors in web-based research: three longitudinal studies

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Rik Crutzen¹  Anja S Göritz² 

[1] CAPHRI, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands;Work, Industrial & Organizational Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany;

关键词: Social Desirability;    Panel Member;    Health Risk Behavior;    Impression Management;    Current Behavior;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-720

 received in 2010-06-25, accepted in 2010-11-23,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThese studies sought to investigate the relation between social desirability and self-reported health risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, drug use, smoking) in web-based research.MethodsThree longitudinal studies (Study 1: N = 5612, 51% women; Study 2: N = 619, 60%; Study 3: N = 846, 59%) among randomly selected members of two online panels (Dutch; German) using several social desirability measures (Marlowe-Crowne Scale; Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding; The Social Desirability Scale-17) were conducted.ResultsSocial desirability was not associated with self-reported current behavior or behavior frequency. Socio-demographics (age; sex; education) did not moderate the effect of social desirability on self-reported measures regarding health risk behaviors.ConclusionsThe studies at hand provided no convincing evidence to throw doubt on the usefulness of the Internet as a medium to collect self-reports on health risk behaviors.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Crutzen and Göritz; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010