{"id":1987,"slug":"tourangeau-yan-2007-sensitive-questions","title":"Tourangeau & Yan 2007 — social-desirability misreporting is common and situational","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["self-report-validity","survey-question-design"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Tourangeau & Yan (2007, *Psychological Bulletin*, \"Sensitive Questions in Surveys\") review shows misreporting on sensitive topics \"is quite common and largely situational\" — respondents over-report desirable behaviors (voting) and under-report undesirable ones. **Self-administration (as in a web widget) reduces but does not eliminate this.**\n\n**Source:** Tourangeau & Yan 2007, *Psychological Bulletin*. Peer-reviewed review.\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The widget runs on the web, which is the lowest-pressure mode for sensitive disclosure — but \"do you respond to reviews?\", \"how often do you publish content?\", and \"do you have an SEO process?\" still carry social-desirability pull. Frame these as observable counts (\"how many reviews have you replied to in the last 30 days?\") to reduce wiggle room.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-capture-layer-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget capture layer — what owners can vs cannot self-report (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:00.850Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:00.850Z"}