Response Latencies as Evidence of Social Desirability Bias in Voter Turnout Overreports

Abstract

Most vote validation studies assume that socially desirable responding is the cause of turnout overreports. Still, very little has been done to test this assertion. Using response latency measures from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study and its vote validation data, I examine the relationship between overreporting turnout and response latencies. Emulating research on the effect of deception on response latencies I test whether turnout overreports have a similar effect to that of deception on the response latencies for self-reported turnout. I find that the respondents who overreport turnout have higher mean response times than validated voters on average, and address the role memory in predicting the length of response latencies for the turnout self-reports. This study sheds light on the cognitive mechanism that underlies the occurrence of overreports in survey research, and provides new evidence to support the view that overreports of voter turnout occur due to socially desirable responding.

Social Desirability Biased Responding: Are Researchers Listening?

“…Educated people who express an interest in politics are the most likely to over-report. The over-reporting of voter turnout is attributed to socially desirable responding [49]. In the 2016 presidential election, people who were more likely to comply with social science norms were less likely to show support for Trump in preelection polls, yet many obviously voted for him [50].…”