Social desirability bias refers to the tendency of research subjects to give socially desirable responses instead of choosing responses that are reflective of their true feelings. The bias in responses due to this personality trait becomes a major issue when the scope of the study involves socially sensitive issues such as politics, religion, and environment, or personal issues such as drug use, cheating, and smoking. Whenever possible, it is desirable to measure the extent of the bias present in responses to a survey by incorporating a socially desirable scale in the survey. A number of methods to address this issue are suggested in the literature. Use of a well‐trained interviewer or collection of data through methods that do not require presence involvement of an interviewer can help avoid this bias to some extent. Properly identified options to questions vulnerable to social desirability effect is another means of tackling this issue.

Native advertising is a new form of online advertising that appears in many settings, such as blogs, social media, and entertainment and news publications. Native ads typically blend with their surrounding context, stem from sources or placements that do not signal advertising, lack overtly persuasive or sales-focused messaging, and have less clear material outcomes. Such characteristics raise ethical concerns because native ads are more difficult for consumers to identify and because they challenge concepts that are central to current deceptive advertising policy. Native advertising is a Federal Trade Commission enforcement priority, and the agency has developed guidelines for this new ad form. However, the unique characteristics of native advertising likely require novel approaches to protect consumers. In this article, the authors trace the evolution of regulation relevant to native advertising. They identify shortcomings and propose remedies that the Federal Trade Commission or industry could adopt to prevent consumer harm, detect infractions, and enforce its regulations. The authors also develop an agenda for future research needed to more fully inform public policy and industry response in this arena.

Researchers have operationalized communal and exchange relationship perceptions as either mutually exclusive categories or opposite ends of a continuum. This research conceptualizes these relationships as distinct constructs that should be measured separately. We develop multi-item measures of communal and exchange relationship perceptions and find that they are actually positively correlated. We also examine the way communal and exchange relationship perceptions combine to influence intrinsic, extrinsic, and social motivations to donate, a category stipulated in economics, but not in psychology. We find that both relationship perceptions influence consumer attitudes toward donating through a mix of intrinsic, extrinsic, and social motivations.

Pretesting is a very important step in survey research. It is an absolutely necessary step to ensure all kinds of errors that are associated with survey research are reduced. It helps to improve the quality of data significantly. Pretesting is done on a small sample of respondents from the target population. After the pilot test, both the interviewer(s) and respondents are asked a series of questions regarding the survey as well as the process of data collection during the debriefing session. Such debriefing sessions can help detect any problem with the questionnaire design leading to ambiguity of words, misinterpretation of questions, inability to answer a question, sensitive questions, and many other problems associated with the questionnaire as well as the process of administering the survey. It also provides an opportunity to give feedback to the interviewer to ensure that she/he follows the proper protocol of data collection procedures to ensure objectivity in data collection.

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