Shirking behavior and socially desirable responding in online surveys: A cross-cultural study comparing Chinese and American samples

Respondents of online surveys may exhibit some answering behaviors, which lead to inconsistent survey results between online surveys and traditional paper surveys. Extant research has not yet devoted sufficient effort to the mechanisms of different answering behaviors on the inconsistent results, especially in cross-cultural survey contexts. For this reason, this study examines how shirking behavior (i.e., a form of disengaged behavior that the respondents expend insufficient mental effort on the questionnaire) and socially desirable responding result in incomparable responses between online surveys and paper surveys. We especially investigate how the cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism relate to shirking and social desirability. Our results reveal two different pathways leading to inconsistent results across different survey modes. Respondents from collectivistic cultures are more likely to shirking in online surveys. Consequently, they are more likely to provide varying responses than respondents from individualistic cultures. Collectivists are more likely to engage in impression management in paper surveys than in online surveys, while individualists have a greater tendency to provide inflated assessments of their skills and abilities in both survey modes.