Estimating the prevalence of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Germany: A comparison of randomized response and direct questioning

Recreational Athletes' Use of Performance-Enhancing Substances: Results from the First European Randomized Response Technique Survey

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Measuring the prevalence of doping in recreational sport is difficult. However, to fit their initiatives, National Anti-Doping Organizations are interested in knowing the numbers, so their scarce resources are not wasted. The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of doping and over-the-counter medicine use for performance enhancement among recreational athletes in eight European countries.

DESIGN

A survey covering + 200 sports aimed at recreational athletes 15 years and older was distributed via social media to sports clubs and individuals in eight European countries. To overcome social desirability bias, we applied indirect questioning by using the Randomized Response Technique and asked for the use of over-the-counter medicine and doping for the year 2019.

RESULTS

The prevalence of the use of over-the-counter medications for performance enhancement was estimated at 10.4%. We differentiated between the concept of "doping" as the behavior to enhance performance in a certain sport and the concept of "a doper" as a property of a person. The prevalence of dopers in recreational sport was found to be 0.4%, with 3.1% male and 0% female dopers. Responses were separated into four categories: "Artistic sports," "Combat sports," "Games," and "CGS sports" (i.e., sports measured in centimeters, grams, and seconds). The overall prevalence of doping in recreational sports was found to be 1.6%, and the results from Artistic and CGS sports did not differ significantly from this. However, in Games we found an estimated doping prevalence of 6.9%.

DISCUSSION

The estimates for the prevalence of dopers and doping in this study do not equal Anti-Doping Rule Violations as stipulated by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Still, while doping is not absent in recreational sport in Europe, it appears to be a low frequent phenomenon. Also, the differences in doping prevalence between the sports categories might reflect structural and competition-related differences, rather than differences in the logic of the sporting competition or discipline-related subcultures.

CONCLUSION

While few recreational athletes appear to use illegal drugs to enhance performance, those who do use them are more often men than women. Yet, 1 in 10 recreational athletes uses over-the-counter medication for performance enhancement and more than 4 out of 10 use medication for other reasons than performance enhancement when doing sports. The highest doping prevalence was found in the sub-category of Games, which can likely be attributed to competition-related differences between the categories. Therefore, research on doping in recreational sports needs tailored approaches to come to a better understanding of the phenomenon.

Norms to be prejudiced: List experiments on attitudes towards immigrants in Japan

Are anti-prejudice norms against immigrants shared worldwide? Although previous studies found that prejudice against immigrants is considered socially undesirable, these studies were conducted exclusively in Western societies and we have little knowledge of the awareness of anti-prejudice norms against immigrants outside of these societies. We use the case of Japan, where people tend to believe that the society is ethnically homogeneous, expecting that this context-specific notion mitigates the awareness of anti-prejudice norms. We conducted two list experiments using online surveys and compared the answers to those of list experiments and direct questions about attitudes towards immigrants to reveal Japanese citizens' perceptions of norms. The results show that Japanese citizens attempt to show more negative attitudes upon direct questions than in list experiments, indicating that it is normative to express prejudice against immigrants rather than suppressing it. These results suggest anti-prejudice norms against immigrants are context-dependent and not universally shared.

Nothing but the truth? Effects of faking on the validity of the crosswise model

In self-reports, socially desirable responding threatens the validity of prevalence estimates for sensitive personal attitudes and behaviors. Indirect questioning techniques such as the crosswise model attempt to control for the influence of social desirability bias. The crosswise model has repeatedly been found to provide more valid prevalence estimates than direct questions. We investigated whether crosswise model estimates are also less susceptible to deliberate faking than direct questions. To this end, we investigated the effect of "fake good" instructions on responses to direct and crosswise model questions. In a sample of 1,946 university students, 12-month prevalence estimates for a sensitive road traffic behavior were higher and thus presumably more valid in the crosswise model than in a direct question. Moreover, "fake good" instructions severely impaired the validity of the direct questioning estimates, whereas the crosswise model estimates were unaffected by deliberate faking. Participants also reported higher levels of perceived confidentiality and a lower perceived ease of faking in the crosswise model compared to direct questions. Our results corroborate previous studies finding the crosswise model to be an effective tool for counteracting the detrimental effects of positive self-presentation in surveys on sensitive issues.

Investigating illegal activities that affect biodiversity: the case of wildlife consumption in the Brazilian Amazon

The illegal use of natural resources, manifested in activities like illegal logging, poaching, and illegal wildlife trade, poses a global threat to biodiversity. Addressing them will require an understanding of the magnitude of and factors influencing these activities. However, assessing such behaviors is challenging because of their illegal nature, making participants less willing to admit engaging in them. We compared how indirect (randomized response technique) and direct questioning techniques performed when assessing non-sensitive (fish consumption, used as negative control) and sensitive (illegal consumption of wild animals) behaviors across an urban gradient (small towns, large towns, and the large city of Manaus) in the Brazilian Amazon. We conducted 1,366 surveys of randomly selected households to assess the magnitude of consumption of meat from wild animals (i.e., wild meat) and its socioeconomic drivers, which included years the head of household lived in urban areas, age of the head of household, household size, presence of children, and poverty. The indirect method revealed higher rates of wildlife consumption in larger towns than did the direct method. Results for small towns were similar between the two methods. The indirect method also revealed socioeconomic factors influencing wild meat consumption that were not detected with direct methods. For instance, the indirect method showed that wild meat consumption increased with age of the head of household, and decreased with poverty and years the head of household lived in urban areas. Simultaneously, when responding to direct questioning, households with characteristics associated with higher wild meat consumption, as estimated from indirect questioning, tended to underreport consumption to a larger degree than households with lower wild meat consumption. Results for fish consumption, used as negative control, were similar for both methods. Our findings suggest that people edit their answers to varying degrees when responding to direct questioning, potentially biasing conclusions, and indirect methods can improve researchers' ability to identify patterns of illegal activities when the sensitivity of such activities varies across spatial (e.g., urban gradient) or social (e.g., as a function of age) contexts. This work is broadly applicable to other geographical regions and disciplines that deal with sensitive human behaviors.

On the validity of non-randomized response techniques: an experimental comparison of the crosswise model and the triangular model

Non-randomized response techniques (NRRTs) such as the crosswise model and the triangular model (CWM and TRM; Yu et al. Metrika, 67, 251-263, 2008) have been developed to control for socially desirable responding in surveys on sensitive personal attributes. We present the first study to directly compare the validity of the CWM and TRM and contrast their performance with a conventional direct questioning (DQ) approach. In a paper-pencil survey of 1382 students, we obtained prevalence estimates for two sensitive attributes (xenophobia and rejection of further refugee admissions) and one nonsensitive control attribute with a known prevalence (the first letter of respondents' surnames). Both NRRTs yielded descriptively higher prevalence estimates for the sensitive attributes than DQ; however, only the CWM estimates were significantly higher. We attribute the higher prevalence estimates for the CWM to its response symmetry, which is lacking in the TRM. Only the CWM provides symmetric answer options, meaning that there is no "safe" alternative respondents can choose to distance themselves from being carriers of the sensitive attribute. Prevalence estimates for the nonsensitive control attribute with known prevalence confirmed that neither method suffered from method-specific bias towards over- or underestimation. Exploratory moderator analyses further suggested that the sensitive attributes were perceived as more sensitive among politically left-oriented than among politically right-oriented respondents. Based on our results, we recommend using the CWM over the TRM in future studies on sensitive personal attributes.

Controlling social desirability bias: An experimental investigation of the extended crosswise model

Indirect questioning techniques such as the crosswise model aim to control for socially desirable responding in surveys on sensitive personal attributes. Recently, the extended crosswise model has been proposed as an improvement over the original crosswise model. It offers all of the advantages of the original crosswise model while also enabling the detection of systematic response biases. We applied the extended crosswise model to a new sensitive attribute, campus islamophobia, and present the first experimental investigation including an extended crosswise model, and a direct questioning control condition, respectively. In a paper-pencil questionnaire, we surveyed 1,361 German university students using either a direct question or the extended crosswise model. We found that the extended crosswise model provided a good model fit, indicating no systematic response bias and allowing for a pooling of the data of both groups of the extended crosswise model. Moreover, the extended crosswise model yielded significantly higher estimates of campus Islamophobia than a direct question. This result could either indicate that the extended crosswise model was successful in controlling for social desirability, or that response biases such as false positives or careless responding have inflated the estimate, which cannot be decided on the basis of the available data. Our findings highlight the importance of detecting response biases in surveys implementing indirect questioning techniques.

Xenophobic attitudes, behaviors and coping strategies among Lebanese people toward immigrants and refugees

PURPOSE

To assess the relationship between xenophobia and the coping strategies and evaluate factors associated with xenophobia in Lebanon.

DESIGN/METHODS

This cross-sectional study, conducted between March and July 2017, enrolled 433 participants.

RESULTS

Severe xenophobia (β = 1.46) and female sex (β = 1.45) were associated with higher problem-focused engagement scores. Participants with a low income had lower problem-focused disengagement score compared to those without income. Moderate (β = 0.80) and intense xenophobia (β = 1.38) were significantly associated with higher emotion-focused engagement, whereas female sex was significantly associated with lower emotion-focused engagement (β = -0.71) and disengagement (β = -0.83). Being divorced compared to single (β = 2.32) and female sex (β = 2.04) were associated with higher xenophobia.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Our study supports the prevalence of xenophobia amongst Lebanese but requires a broader assessment of that trend.

Assessing the validity of two indirect questioning techniques: A Stochastic Lie Detector versus the Crosswise Model

Estimates of the prevalence of sensitive attributes obtained through direct questions are prone to being distorted by untruthful responding. Indirect questioning procedures such as the Randomized Response Technique (RRT) aim to control for the influence of social desirability bias. However, even on RRT surveys, some participants may disobey the instructions in an attempt to conceal their true status. In the present study, we experimentally compared the validity of two competing indirect questioning techniques that presumably offer a solution to the problem of nonadherent respondents: the Stochastic Lie Detector and the Crosswise Model. For two sensitive attributes, both techniques met the "more is better" criterion. Their application resulted in higher, and thus presumably more valid, prevalence estimates than a direct question. Only the Crosswise Model, however, adequately estimated the known prevalence of a nonsensitive control attribute.

Context effects and the temporal stability of stated preferences

In stated preference studies it is assumed that individuals' answers reflect true preferences and are stable over time. We test these two assumptions of validity and reliability using as an example a choice experiment study on ethical consumption that measures preferences for a Peace Product jointly produced by Israeli and Palestinian producers as well as for organic products. In a web survey conducted in Germany, we investigate the validity assumption by manipulating the question context and presenting one group of respondents with questions on anti-Semitic and anti-Arabic attitudes before the choice tasks, and presenting another group with these questions after the choice tasks. In order to test the assumption of temporal stability, the same experimental set-up was repeated in a second survey based on a new sample ten months after the first. However, prior to the second survey an external event, a major violent dispute between Israelis and the Palestinians occurred. Overall, we find evidence for a context effect but not for temporal instability. In both surveys, the placement of the attitudinal questions before the choice tasks has a positive effect on the valuation of products from Israel, Palestinian products and the Peace Product (i.e. a directional context effect). The respondents seem to act according to an anti-discrimination norm. In line with this reasoning, we find an attention shift caused by the attitudinal questions. Organic products are valued much less positively if discriminatory attitudes are surveyed before the choice tasks. Furthermore, despite the violent dispute, stated preferences are very stable over time. This indicates high reliability of stated preference studies and encourages the use of study results by private and public decision makers.

The multidimensional randomized response design: Estimating different aspects of the same sensitive behavior

The conventional randomized response design is unidimensional in the sense that it measures a single dimension of a sensitive attribute, like its prevalence, frequency, magnitude, or duration. This paper introduces a multidimensional design characterized by categorical questions that each measure a different aspect of the same sensitive attribute. The benefits of the multidimensional design are (i) a substantial gain in power and efficiency, and the potential to (ii) evaluate the goodness-of-fit of the model, and (iii) test hypotheses about evasive response biases in case of a misfit. The method is illustrated for a two-dimensional design measuring both the prevalence and the magnitude of social security fraud.

Three experimental approaches to measure the social context dependence of prejudice communication and discriminatory behavior

Empirical research on discrimination is faced with crucial problems stemming from the specific character of its object of study. In democratic societies the communication of prejudices and other forms of discriminatory behavior is considered socially undesirable and depends on situational factors such as whether a situation is considered private or whether a discriminatory consensus can be assumed. Regular surveys thus can only offer a blurred picture of the phenomenon. But also survey experiments intended to decrease the social desirability bias (SDB) so far failed in systematically implementing situational variables. This paper introduces three experimental approaches to improve the study of discrimination and other topics of social (un-)desirability. First, we argue in favor of cognitive context framing in surveys in order to operationalize the salience of situational norms. Second, factorial surveys offer a way to take situational contexts and substitute behavior into account. And third, choice experiments - a rather new method in sociology - offer a more valid method of measuring behavioral characteristics compared to simple items in surveys. All three approaches - which may be combined - are easy to implement in large-scale surveys. Results of empirical studies demonstrate the fruitfulness of each of these approaches.