Differences between `talking about' and `admitting' sensitive behaviour in anonymous and non-anonymous web-based interviews

This paper examines the differences between two factors of the tendency to give socially desirable answers in regard to sensitive questions. In contrast to the usual question of how socially desirable a certain behaviour is perceived by the interviewee, a study performed at the University of Bremen divided this question into `talking about' and `admitting' a certain behaviour, where `talking about' meant to mention a certain behaviour in public while `admitting' implied that one has already done it oneself. Additionally, the study compared two different computer mediated interview modes: a web-based questionnaire (ONLINE) and an innovative method called internet assisted personal interview (IAPI), which used a desktop video conference system to facilitate communication between the interviewer and the interviewee. This was done in order to compare the tendency to give socially desirable answers in an anonymous (ONLINE) and non-anonymous (IAPI) interview setting. Results show that there are significant differences between most of the `talking about' and `admitting' items. Nevertheless, the expected differences between the interview modes were not observed.