Social Desirability Bias

Also known as: Social Desirability, Desirability Bias, Say-Do Gap

Tendencia de los encuestados a responder de forma socialmente aceptable en lugar de revelar sus actitudes o comportamientos reales.

Social Desirability Bias is the tendency of respondents to modify their answers to appear more favorably to the researcher or society, responding what they believe is 'correct' or 'acceptable' rather than revealing their actual attitudes or behaviors.

In market research it impacts: health and eating behaviors ('I eat less junk food than I actually do'), purchase behaviors ('I buy more local products than I actually do'), social attitudes ('I am more environmentally conscious than I actually am'), and media consumption ('I watch less trashy TV than I actually do').

Mitigations: anonymous surveys, behavioral rather than attitudinal questions, projective techniques, direct observation (ethnography), and analysis of real vs. declared behavior data.