Experimental Comparisons of Methods for Reducing Deliberate Distortions to Self-Report Measures of Sensitive Constructs

Sensitive constructs, such as counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB), are of interest to both basic and applied researchers; however, deliberate response distortionsactive attempts on the part of respondents to be viewed more favorablypresent a major difficulty with studying these topics. Although different methodologies purported to reduce distortions have been developed, they suffer from various limitations. For example, a notable limitation of what is currently considered best practice, randomized response techniques, is the inability to gather individual-level data. Across three experiments, we compare four different methods for obtaining self-reports of CWB that return individual-level data. Results suggest that whereas providing anonymity, counterbiasing, and implicit goal priming did not result in higher reporting of sensitive behaviors, the indirect questioning methodology did result in higher reporting. We also provide initial validity evidence for the indirect questioning scores and rule out some alternative explanations for the increased reporting of the indirect questioning method. Though more research is needed, these studies provide initial evidence regarding the potential utility of the indirect questioning method for increasing the reports on self-report measures of sensitive constructs.