Self-Reports Of Information Seeking: Is Social Desirability In Play?

Abstract

Social desirability, the likelihood of individuals to overreport behaviors they perceive to be approved by others, is often cited as a limitation in research but rarely controlled in a systematic manner. Social desirability can influence self-reported behaviors (e.g., voting behavior) and communication variables (e.g., argumentativeness). Information seeking may be susceptible to the effects of social desirability as knowledge and information are generally desired, and thus may be prone to overreporting. This article presents results from two online, information-seeking tracking studies investigating the influence of social desirability on self-reported information seeking. Participants indicated how much time they actually spent seeking information on a website. Unbeknownst to participants, their website use was being tracked using Google Analytics. This article compares actual time spent seeking information to reported information-seeking time. Results suggest that participants overreport information seeking in these two studies; social desirability may explain this result.

Publication Date

8-7-2016

Publication Title

Atlantic Journal of Communication

Volume

24

Issue

4

Number of Pages

242-249

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2016.1208661

Socpus ID

84988484607 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84988484607

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