Thinking/Saying/Doing -- from Presentation of Self to Models and Metrics for Detecting and Understanding Bias in Self-Reports

Monday, 7 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: SJES002 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
RC45 Rational Choice (host committee)
RC28 Social Stratification

Language: English

It has been known for a long time that survey respondents and other research participants may say things that differ from what they really think or actually do. Both the thinking and doing elements cover a broad territory. The thinking element spans knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, assessments. The doing element spans public and private behaviors. The mechanisms underlying the discrepancy are also many, from the presentation of self and social desirability bias to mischievous response and status enhancement (Allen 1966; Clancy and Gove 1974; Goffman 1959; Jerolmack and Khan 2014). Similarly, the topical domains are many, from under- and over-reporting of earnings and wealth to immigrant principals reporting they are nonprincipals and immigrant nonprincipals reporting they are principals to under- and over-reporting of sexual partners (Jasso 2011; Laumann, Michael, Gagnon, and Stuart 1994; Ruel and Hauser 2013; Smith 1990). In some topical domains, the underlying theory explicitly provides parallel terms for thinking and saying elements, for example, in justice theory the true and disclosed just reward and the experienced and expressed justice evaluation. More research is important for advancing not only basic knowledge but also the foundation for public discourse. For example, if men tend to overestimate schooling and earnings and women to underestimate them then the ensuing gender gaps would be overestimated. This session welcomes papers of all types and approaches that address the relations among thinking and saying, thinking and doing, and saying and doing across all topical domains, social contexts, and historical periods.
Session Organizer:
Guillermina JASSO, New York University, USA
Panelists:
Ayline HELLER, GESIS, Germany, Peter SCHMIDT, University of Giessen, Germany, Jia MIAO, The Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER), China and Xiaogang WU, United States
Oral Presentations
Overestimation Unveiled: Men’s Skill Overrating and the Power of Question Phrasing to Counteract It
Stephan BISCHOF, Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany
Hair Speaks: Social Context and the Interpretation of Religious Signals--Evidence from a Pre-Registered Face-to-Face Large-Scale Experiment
Johanna GEREKE, Germany; Reinhard SCHUNCK, GESIS, Germany; Ozan AKSOY, University College London, United Kingdom; Emily HELLRIGEL, Wuppertal, Germany; Joshua HELLYER, Mannheim, Germany
See more of: RC45 Rational Choice
See more of: RC28 Social Stratification
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