The respondents’ susceptibility to item nonresponse is an important determinant for the quality of political science survey data. In particular, one has to expect biased samples when groups of respondents systematically differ in their nonresponse rates. Our study tests firstly whether and how...

In this article we analyze beliefs about the social desirability of ten racial attitude items from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). These beliefs indicate that the items, as well as respondents with regard to different sex, age and education, are differently prone to social...

Survey respondents have consistently been found to overreport their participation in political elections. Lots of research has been done about the sociodemographic correlates of vote overreporting, but only a few studies analyzed determinants which survey researchers have under their control in...

Empirical evidence suggests that the respondents� approval motive, their desirability beliefs and the privacy of the response situation affects respondents� susceptibility to social desirability bias. Previous research has analyzed the explanatory power of these factors separately and has...

We test the hypothesis that respondents with a strong attitude that surveys in general cannot be trusted are more susceptible to item nonresponse. This is done separately for the don’t know and refusal rate observed for subjective and factual questions. In a comparative perspective, using data...

The respondents in social surveys often answer in a socially desirable, rather than in a truthful manner. Although several factors are found to influence the strength of this social desirability response bias, their interplay with each other is widely neglected because of the insufficient...

A strongly modified and with psychological components enhanced Rational-Choice Model, for explaining the influence of differently categorized frequency scales on the survey response behavior, is proposed. Here, the assumption of perfect rationality is abandoned and instead, the respondents are...

Survey respondents have been found to systematically overreport their participation in political elections. Although the sociodemographic correlates of this response bias are well known, only a few studies have analyzed the determinants predicted by two prominent theoretical explanations for...

The Prospect-Theory only vaguely specifies the factors expected to determine the decision maker's reference points and therefore the emergence of framing-effects. This theoretical shortcoming is demonstrated, using the usually proposed explanation for the wording-effects observed in the context...

This paper analyzes whether respondents� attitudes toward surveys explains their susceptibility to item nonresponse. In contrast to previous studies, the decision to refuse to provide income information, not to answer other questions and the probability of �don�t know� responses is...