Biased polls
Investigating the pressures survey respondents feel
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9537586 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ryan L Claassen (0000-0002-4781-3039, Kent State University, corresponding author), John Barry Ryan (0000-0002-5446-6442, State Street (United States)) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 821-843 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Politica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41269-024-00356-4 |
| OpenAlex | W4401091897 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 38 |
Democratic bias in polls reached record highs in recent elections. The Shy Trump Voter Hypothesis claims some voters feel pressure to hide plans to vote for Trump. Despite several scholarly efforts to assess whether shy Trump voters contribute significantly to Democratic bias, the jury is still out. We undertake a thorough investigation using the longstanding, and more general, social desirability framework to consider why some survey subjects might be shy about revealing their support for any candidate. We randomly assign voters to either report the candidate they would SAY they would vote for if they wanted to make the best impression on others or the worst impression. In a new addition to this experiment, we then return to each voter with the opposite condition. Doing so allows us to investigate the causes and consequences of the social pressures voters feel when discussing which candidate they support. We show that the pressures voters feel are a function of the partisan context in which they live and we focus on voters that feel pressure to say they support a candidate other than the candidate of the party with which they identify. Although we demonstrate that cross-pressured partisans are more likely to say they intend to vote for the other party’s candidate than unpressured partisans, they occur on both sides and so polling bias created by them (should they revert to their party’s candidate in the voting booth) is likely reduced in the aggregate
Comparative politics · Political science · Survey research · Applied Psychology · Law · Psychology · Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
Political Disagreement
Independent Politics
Voting
Hearing the Other Side
The Twilight of the Polls? A Review of Trends in Polling Accuracy and the Causes of Polling Misses
Social Desirability Bias in the 2016 Presidential Election
Response Privacy and Elapsed Time Since Election Day as Determinants for Vote Overreporting
Polls and Elections Accuracy and Bias in the 2020 U.S. General Election Polls
A “Ferguson Effect” on 2016 Presidential Vote Preference? Findings from a Framing Experiment Examining “Shy Voters” and Cues Related to Policing and Social Unrest
The Influence of Social Desirability Pressures on Expressed Immigration Attitudes
Social Desirability and Response Validity
How Transparency Affects Survey Responses
How Social Desirability Response Bias May Lead to an Overestimation of Obama-Trump Voters
Saving Face
Follow Your Heart
A Simple Theory of the Survey Response
Persuadable Voter
Social Networks and Correct Voting
Social Desirability and Affective Polarization
Telephone versus Face-to-Face Interviewing of National Probability Samples with Long Questionnaires
An Evaluation of the 2016 Election Polls in the United States
What Can We Learn with Statistical Truth Serum
Good Excuses
Political Norms and the Private Act of Voting
The impact of social desirability bias on conspiracy belief measurement across cultures
The Moderating Impact of Social Networks on the Relationships Among Core Values, Partisanship, and Candidate Evaluations
The Effects of Network Expertise and Biases on Vote Choice
Cross Pressure Scores
In Government We Trust
Brexit or Corbyn? Campaign and Inter-Election Vote Switching in the 2017 UK General Election
Racial Stereotypes and Whites' Political Views of Blacks in the Context of Welfare and Crime
Understanding the 2016 US Presidential Polls
Did Shy Trump Supporters Bias the 2016 Polls? Evidence from a Nationally-representative List Experiment
When to Worry about Sensitivity Bias
The Social Calculus of Voting
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |