{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,22]],"date-time":"2026-01-22T18:29:00Z","timestamp":1769106540191,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]],"date-time":"2021-06-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1623024000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000865","name":"Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["OPP1079004"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["OPP1079004"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000865","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Survey researchers hope that respondents will provide high-quality data, but evidence suggests that social desirability bias may be commonplace. Social desirability can lead to significant underreporting or overreporting of sensitive behaviors. With better understanding of the cognitive processes that respondents use to prepare and deliver their responses, survey designers could hope to minimize social desirability bias or at least detect settings that lessen its impact. The primary objective of this study was to use survey paradata to understand the psychology of responding to certain types of survey questions. More specifically, we sought to determine how emotional triggering can alter response latencies to cognitively demanding and sensitive survey questions on induced abortion, which is underreported. We hypothesize that having had a prior abortion might lengthen response times to an indirect question about abortion among respondents who have experienced this sensitive reproductive outcome as they hesitate in deciding whether and how to respond to the question. Data come from a representative survey of 6,035 reproductive age women in Rajasthan, India. We used list experiment question active screen time paradata in conjunction with responses from direct questions on abortion to assess our hypothesis. Our final model was a multivariate linear regression with random effects at the level of the interviewer, including adjustments for respondent, community, and interviewer characteristics to estimate within-respondent effects. Results suggest that women who reported an abortion on the direct abortion questions took 5.11 (95% CI 0.21, 10.00) seconds longer to respond to the list experiment treatment list compared to the control list in comparison to women who did not report an abortion on the direct abortion questions. This study demonstrates the additional insights gained when focusing on response latencies to cognitively demanding questions involved in the measurement of sensitive behaviors.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0252512","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]],"date-time":"2021-06-07T17:44:06Z","timestamp":1623087846000},"page":"e0252512","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Can you repeat the question? Paradata as a lens to understand respondent experience answering cognitively demanding, sensitive questions"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7650-5940","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Suzanne O.","family":"Bell","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"David","family":"Bishai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]]},"reference":[{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0252512.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"859","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.133.5.859","article-title":"Sensitive questions in surveys","volume":"133","author":"R Tourangeau","year":"2007","journal-title":"Psychological bulletin"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0252512.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"437","DOI":"10.1037\/a0028085","article-title":"Identifying careless responses in survey data","volume":"17","author":"AW Meade","year":"2012","journal-title":"Psychological methods"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0252512.ref003","first-page":"493","article-title":"The interdependence of determinants for the strength and direction of social disirability bias in racial attitude surveys","volume":"23","author":"V Stock\u00e9","year":"2007","journal-title":"Journal of Official Statistics"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0252512.ref004","first-page":"7","article-title":"Responding to Socially Desirable and Undesirable Topics: Different Types of Response Behaviour?","volume":"13","author":"H Andersen","year":"2019","journal-title":"Methods, data, analyses: a journal for quantitative methods and survey methodology (mda)"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0252512.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"161","DOI":"10.1177\/0146167203259930","article-title":"Social desirability and self-reports: Testing models of socially desirable responding","volume":"30","author":"T Holtgraves","year":"2004","journal-title":"Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin"},{"issue":"18","key":"pone.0252512.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1650","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1559-1816.1997.tb01618.x","article-title":"Face Management, Question Wording, and Social Desirability1","volume":"27","author":"T Holtgraves","year":"1997","journal-title":"Journal of Applied Social Psychology"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0252512.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"213","DOI":"10.1002\/acp.2350050305","article-title":"Response strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of attitude measures in surveys","volume":"5","author":"JA Krosnick","year":"1991","journal-title":"Applied cognitive psychology"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref008","volume-title":"Models of man: social and rational: mathematical essays on rational human behavior in a social setting","author":"H Simon","year":"1957"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0252512.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"272","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.63.2.272","article-title":"A model of personality test item response dissimulation","volume":"63","author":"RR Holden","year":"1992","journal-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0252512.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"68","DOI":"10.1177\/0759106317710858","article-title":"Social desirability and undesirability effects on survey response latencies","volume":"135","author":"H Andersen","year":"2017","journal-title":"Bulletin of Sociological Methodology\/Bulletin de m\u00e9thodologie sociologique"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref011","unstructured":"Miller J. A New Survey Technique for Studying Deviant Behavior [Ph.D Dissertation]: The George Washington University; 1984."},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0252512.ref012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"43","DOI":"10.1111\/sifp.12082","article-title":"Can a List Experiment Improve Validity of Abortion Measurement?","volume":"50","author":"SO Bell","year":"2019","journal-title":"Studies in family planning"},{"issue":"S1","key":"pone.0252512.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"159","DOI":"10.1093\/poq\/nfs070","article-title":"What Can We Learn with Statistical Truth Serum?: Design and Analysis of the List Experiment","volume":"77","author":"AN Glynn","year":"2013","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref014","unstructured":"Moseson H, Jayaweera R, Huber-Krum S, Garver S, Norris A, Gerdts C, editors. Two test applications of the List Experiment method to reduce under-reporting of abortion: results from Malawi and Senegal. IUSSP Panel on Incidence and Safety of Abortion: New Evidence and Improvements in Measurement; 2018; Watamu, Kenya."},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref015","article-title":"Reducing under-reporting of stigmatized health events using the List Experiment: results from a randomized, population-based study of abortion in Liberia","author":"H Moseson","year":"2015","journal-title":"Int J Epidemiol"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref016","unstructured":"Treleaven E, Thuy LD, Pham TN, Diamond-Smith N. The List Experiment: Piloting a Methodology to Measure Stigmatized Behaviors around Sex-Selective Abortion in Vietnam. IUSSP; Cape Town, South Africa2017."},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0252512.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"202","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1540-5907.2011.00540.x","article-title":"Vote buying and social desirability bias: Experimental evidence from Nicaragua","volume":"56","author":"E Gonzalez-Ocantos","year":"2012","journal-title":"American Journal of Political Science"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0252512.ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"253","DOI":"10.1093\/poq\/nfm012","article-title":"A Study of the Properties of the Item Count Technique","volume":"71","author":"T Tsuchiya","year":"2007","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0252512.ref019","first-page":"287","article-title":"Model-based estimation of drug use prevalence using item count data","volume":"21","author":"P Biemer","year":"2005","journal-title":"Journal of Official Statistics"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0252512.ref020","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"598","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.46.3.598","article-title":"Two-component models of socially desirable responding","volume":"46","author":"DL Paulhus","year":"1984","journal-title":"Journal of personality and social psychology"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref021","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"289","DOI":"10.1093\/pan\/mpg004","article-title":"Response latency methodology for survey research: Measurement and modeling strategies","author":"K Mulligan","year":"2003","journal-title":"Political Analysis"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0252512.ref022","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"331","DOI":"10.1086\/269265","article-title":"Response-time measurement in survey research a method for CATI and a new look at nonattitudes","volume":"55","author":"JN Bassili","year":"1991","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref023","unstructured":"Croft TN, Marshall AMJ, Allen CK. Guide to DHS Statistics. Rockville, Maryland, USA: ICF, 2018."},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref024","unstructured":"StataCorp. Stata 15 Base Reference Manual. College Station, TX: Stata Press; 2017."},{"key":"pone.0252512.ref025","unstructured":"Kreuter F, Couper M, Lyberg L, editors. The use of paradata to monitor and manage survey data collection. Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, American Statistical Association; 2010: American Statistical Association Alexandria, VA."},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0252512.ref026","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"187","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1728-4465.2007.00130.x","article-title":"Underreporting of Induced and Spontaneous Abortion in the United States: An Analysis of the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth","volume":"38","author":"RK Jones","year":"2007","journal-title":"Studies in Family Planning"}],"container-title":["PLOS ONE"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0252512","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]],"date-time":"2021-06-07T17:44:35Z","timestamp":1623087875000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0252512"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Mohammad Bellal","family":"Hossain","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"editor","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]]},"references-count":26,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0252512","relation":{},"ISSN":["1932-6203"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1932-6203","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,7]]}}}