Anonymity and Attitudes toward Work

Abstract

133 aides and attendants in a state mental health faciliry completed a job satisfaction questionnaire and a scale describing their supervisor's behavior. Approximatcly half the respondents were asked to sign their names.Anonymous and non-an3nymous groups were compared on individual items and total scores. Responses of these nvo groups were not significantly different. Results agree with previous research findings which indicate thar anonymity or nonanonymity bears little relationship to questionnaire responses. The conditions under which differences benveen anonymous and non-anonymous gcoups have been observed were discussed. PELZ, D. C. Influence of anonymity on expressed attitudes. Human Organization, 1959, 18, 88-91. ROSEN, N. A. Anonymity and attitude measurement.

The Effects of Providing a Warning About the Lie Scale in a Personality Inventory

“…While the effects of job-selection conditions (e.g., Michaelis and Eysenck, 1971), or asking subjects to deliberately ' fake good ' (Eysenck, Syed and Eysenck, 1966) or ' fake bad ' (Keehn, 1962), are well-known and fully appreciated, there is little evidence on the effects of more subtle procedures that might find general application in test administration. Whether questionnaires are completed anonymously or not has, in practice, been found to make little or no difference under normal (research) conditions (Kepes and True, 1967 ;Nias, 1972) ; this result is consistent with the hypothesis that subjects are already giving reasonably truthful answers under such conditions. There are indications, however, that increased truthfulness may be obtained by warning subjects about the presence of a ' lie ' scale in the Eysenck Personality Inventory ; an increase in truthfulness being indicated by decreased scores for L and increased scores for neuroticism (I.…”

Effect of Anonymity on Response of Adoptive Parents to a Child-problems Questionnaire

“…The evidence, however, for this belief is inconclusive. On one hand, studies reported fewer returns and franker responses to anonymous questionnaires (Fuller, 1974) or equivocal findings (Hartnett and Seligsohn, 1967); on the other hand, responses have been found to be unrelated to anonoymity (Kepes and True, 1967;King, 1970;Luetgert and Armstrong, 1973).…”