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November 14, 2013

Study: People Lie in Polls About Same-sex Activity, Homophobia

UNITED STATES—A study released last month by a team of researchers from Ohio State University reveals a marked difference in responses when people are asked to respond in opinion surveys to questions about same-sex attraction and homosexuality, compared with when they are allowed to respond in such a way that they feel assured of their anonymity. The study results indicate, says Cass Sunstein, writing for Bloomberg, that, “We have good reason to believe that there is more same-sex activity, and also more homophobia, than current surveys suggest.“ The results were startling. “In the best practices survey,” reported Sunstein, “17 percent of participants said they had had a sexual experience with someone of the same sex (12 percent of men, 24 percent of women). For the veiled report, the corresponding number was 27 percent (17 percent of men and 43 percent of women)—an increase of 58 percent.” Interestingly, a reassurance of anonymity had less impact on younger respondents than older ones—because, Sunstein surmised, “social norms don’t much discourage young people from revealing the truth. “But among Christians and older people,” he added, “the effect of the veiled approach was especially large, increasing their reports of non-heterosexuality and of same-sex experiences by more than 100 percent.” The two-pronged approach also revealed an admission gap when people were asked if they believe discrimination based on sexual orientation should be illegal. “In the standard survey,” reported Sunstein, “only about 14 percent said no. That number increased to 25 percent in the veiled report.” Likewise, “Only 16 percent of participants said they would be uncomfortable having a manager at work who was lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT for short). The number jumped to 27 percent in the veiled report.” The research was conducted by OSU economist Katherine B. Coffman and others at the university, and involved 2,516 participants, all of who were from the U.S. “About half of the participants,” Sunstein reported, “were randomly assigned to take a standard survey, employing the ‘best practices’ in widespread use today. “In this survey,” he added, “people were asked to respond to several innocuous questions, not involving sensitive issues, and then to answer questions about sexual orientation, designed to elicit both their views and their reports about their own behavior. This approach gives apparently credible assurances of anonymity to those surveyed, but it remains possible, in practice, for the experimenters to link particular answers to particular questions.” The other half of the participants were provided a “veiled” survey that went to extreme lengths to ensure their anonymity. “The details are a bit technical,” wrote Sunstein, “but the basic point is to design the survey so that the experimenters can’t learn, and can’t even make inferences about, any individual’s answers to particular questions. They can calculate answers only at the aggregate level.” While the study is not definitive, due to the admitted fact that the respondent pool was not a representative sample, but skewed young, as Raw Story noted, “The Ohio State team’s results suggest that the real LGBT community is significantly larger than has been reported under normal survey models.” It also suggests that the self-aware homophobic community is as well.

 
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