Article: Social Desirability Effects and Support for a Female American President Public Opinion Quarterly, Advance Access, published Sept. 21, 2007
Summary:
The authors of this article find that contrary to more conventional public opinion polls, “Roughly 26 percent of the public is ‘angry or upset’ about the prospect of a female president. Moreover, this level of dissatisfaction is constant across several demographic groups.”
Surveyers have worried for decades about the effect of social desirability on survey responses. Previous research has shown that those responding to surveys are likely to be influenced by the desire to conform to social norms, especially in the presence of a researcher. For example, when asked about views on racial integration, a respondent is likely to answer that they are in favor of racial integration regardless of their personal views because it is considered socially unacceptable to espouse segregationist views in modern American society.
In this study, the researchers assessed respondents anger at the thought of a female president while allowing responses to be totally anonymous using something called a “list experiment.” The list experiment divides respondents into two randomly distributed groups; the first is given a list of four items, while the second group is given a list of five items. Since the fifth item on the list is the only significant difference between the two groups, the difference in the means between the two groups is attributed to the fifth item. In this experiment, respondents were asked how many items on the list made them “angry or upset.” The fifth item was “A woman serving as president.”
The results suggest that the 2005 Gallup poll showing that 92 percent of the American public would vote for a woman of their party could be exaggerating American readiness for a First Gentleman.