Volunteer bias and personality traits in sexual standards research

Abstract

The effects of personality traits and volunteer bias in sexual standards research were studied. Two hundred and fifty-four subjects completed Jackson's Personality Research Form (PRF) and were subsequently sent either a sex or a control questionnaire. Return rates for the two groups were comparable. Also, the analyses of the PRF scores failed to show sex volunteers as having unique personality characteristics. These results are interpreted as grounds for rejecting the widely held stereotype that volunteers for sexual standards surveys are inevitably an atypical, deviant group. The possible limiting effects of age and method of soliciting information are discussed.

Volunteer bias in human sexuality research: Evidence for both sexuality and personality differences in males

“…In fact, few if any differences have been found between volunteers and nonvolunteers for numerous general personality characteristics, authoritarianism, self-esteem, and psychopathology (Barker and Perlman, 1975;Farkas et al, 1978;Saunders et al, 1985). For example, all 14 personality traits measured on Jackson's (1967) Personality Research Form (PRF) Form A failed to discriminate between a sample of volunteers and nonvolunteers (Saunders et al, 1985), and 21 of 22 personality traits on Jackson's (1967) PRF Form AA failed to discriminate between another sample of volunteers and nonvolunteers (Barker and Perlman, 1975).…”

“…The question of whether volunteers for human sexuality research are different from nonvolunteers has generated considerable research (Barker and Perlman, 1975;Bauman, 1973;Bogaert, 1992;Farkas et al, 1978;Kaats and Davis, 1971;Kenrick et aL, 1980;Morokoff, 1986;Nirenberg et aL, 1991;Saunders et al, 1985;Wolchik eta!., 1985Wolchik eta!., , 1983o This is understandable be-cause this research question addresses concerns about the generalizability of sexual surveys, that is, the extent to which participants in sexual research are biased, self-selected, and do not represent the population of interest.…”

Questionnaire response bias and face‐to‐face interview sample bias in sexuality research

“…RESPONSE AND SAMPLE BIAS 53 research falls into three categories concerning (a) self-administered questionnaires (SAQs) (e.g., Barker & Perlman, 1975;DeLamater & MacCorquodale, 1975;Johnson & DeLamater, 1976;Kaats & Davis, 1971), (b) face-to-face (FTF) interviews (e.g., DeLamater & MacCorquodale, 1975;Johnson & DeLamater, 1975), and (c) physically invasive measures (e.g., physiological measures of erectile function; Farkas, Sine, & Evans, 1978).…”

Socialization factors in contraceptive attitudes: Roles of affective responses, parental attitudes, and sexual experience

“…Volunteers for the present research chose to participate in it and other experiments after reading written descriptions of several studies. They were informed that their written responses to the research questionnaire would be anonymous to enable the experimenter to minimize as much as possible the differences between volunteers and nonvolunteers (Barker & Perlman, 1975). This procedure of obtaining volunteers for data collection was continued until the intended number of volunteers had participated.…”