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

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231184436
• Author: Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina
• Date: 01 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2023, Vol. 51(5) 670–680

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X231184436

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Response Latencies as Evidence of Social

Desirability Bias in Voter Turnout

Overreports

Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina

1



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.

Keywords

turnout, self-reports, response latencies, misreports, deception, social desirability bias

Introduction

Response latencies measure the time it takes someone to

answer individual questions within surveys. Researchers can

use these measures as indicators of “the information pro-

cessing involved in answering survey questions”(Mulligan

et al., 2003, p. 292). More importantly, different modes of

response can impact how long it takes to provide an answer to

questionnaire items. Specif‌ically, false responses have been

found to consistently result in longer response latencies

because deception requires greater cognitive effort than truth

telling. And, since overreports of voter turnout are false

reports electoral participation one should expect that over-

reporting should result in longer response times. This evi-

dence can f‌inally help identify the main cognitive process

involved in overreporting turnout in survey research, and

establish whether social desirability bias is at the root of this

phenomenon.

Most studies of overreporting suggest that socially de-

sirable responding is the cause of this particular form of

response bias. For example, in the f‌irst validation study ever

conducted Parry and Crossley (1950) attributed overreports

to “social pressures”(p. 70). Anderson and Silver (1986)

claimed that individuals overreport turnout because “voting is

a socially desirable behavior”(p. 775). Katosh and Traugott

(1981) argued that “that a variety of social psychological

pressures [are] known to result in systematic overreports of

eligibility and participation”(p. 519) in elections. And, Karp

and Brockington (2005) argue that respondents “have a

strong incentive to offer a socially desirable response”

(p. 825) with regard to their voting behavior. In fact, most

vote validation studies advance the untested view that social

desirability bias is the cause of overreporting (though see

Holbrook and Krosnick (2010) for a study that tests this claim

directly).

Socially desirable responding is a form of response bias

that allows survey respondents “to give overly positive self-

descriptions”(Paulhus, 2002, p. 50) regarding their attitudes

and behaviors when answering questionnaires. Similarly,

turnout overreports help nonvoters present themselves in a

positive light by appearing to fulf‌ill the democratic norm of

voting. Thus, the assumption that socially desirable re-

sponding is what causes overreporting comes from the

1

Department of Political Science, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina, Department of Political Science, Fordham

University, 441 E Fordham Rd, Faber Hall Rm 671, Bronx, NY 10458, USA.

Email: cuevasmolina@fordham.edu