The Impact of repeated lying on survey results

Chesney, Thomas; Penny, Kay I

Abstract

We study the effects on results of participants completing a survey more than once, a phenomenon known as farming. Using data from a real social science study as a baseline, three strategies that participants might use to farm are studied by Monte Carlo simulation. Findings show that farming influences survey results and can cause both statistical hypotheses testing Type I (false positive) and Type II (false negative) errors in unpredictable ways.

Citation

Chesney, T., & Penny, K. I. (2013). The Impact of repeated lying on survey results. SAGE Open, 3(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244012472345

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jan 16, 2013
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 29, 2015
• Print ISSN: 2158-2440
• Electronic ISSN: 2158-2440
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244012472345
• Keywords: Survey results; farming; Monte Carlo simulation; statistical hypotheses testing Type I (false positive); Type II (false negative); lying
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/7884
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2158244012472345