Talk:Response bias

Yes, Prime Minister
There is a perfect demonstration of this phenomenon, and also of leading questions, here, from Yes, Prime Minister. Sir Humphrey Appleby has been asked to rubbish an opinion poll which suggests that most British people are in favour of national service. To illustrate how little weight he places in opinion polls, he asks the Prime Minister's assistant one set of questions ("Do you think young people welcome some structure and leadership in their lives?", "Do they respond to a challenge?") and then another ("Do you think it's wrong to force people to take arms against their will?", "Are you worried about the danger of war?"). To each question the answer is yes, and the conclusions are contradictory. It is a classic piece of writing, comedy or otherwise-wise.

I mention this because it might have a place in the article, but I suspect that non-UK readers will revert it away, on the assumption that it is a tiny insignificant trivial nothing, in the same way that all the references to American television mean nothing outside of the US. And also I suspect that some people will feel that it is trivial to use a television programme to illustrate such a weighty subject. Ashley Pomeroy 19:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would hurt, if worded clearly it should provide a good example. Richard001 05:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Response bias or non-response bias?
Isn't this paragraph:


 * "It also occurs in situations of voluntary response, such as phone-in polls, where the people who care enough to call are not necessarily a statistically representative sample of the actual population."

actually an example of non-response bias, rather than response bias? This describes a statistical bias where the non-respondents may be different than the respondents. But a response bias is supposed to be a cognitive bias!?

Non response bias
Since this redirects here, should it be described as well? There's also a extra sentence at the end talking about self-selection which I'm not sure is relevant here or not. Is self-selection a form of response bias? I'm more familiar with the terms 'non-response bias' and 'self selection', and most of what this article describes is what I know as 'question effects' or 'interviewer effects'. Richard001 05:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

False logical claim
The article now reads 'For example, a participant could be asked whether they endorse the following statement, "I like to spend time with others" but then later on in the survey also endorses "I like to spend time alone," which are contradictory statements.'

Those two statements are not contradictory. Both are true of me, e.g. TimTL (talk) 22:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Is response bias a cognitive bias?
In my opinion, response bias is not a subset of cognitive bias. A cognitive bias is a systematic deviation from optimal reasoning. Response bias is a systematic deviation from truthful response. Suppose Jim is interviewing Sally regarding her opinion of his new product. Jim really wants a positive review and Sally can tell. Not wanting to upset Jim, Sally reports her opinion as more accurate than it really is. This is clearly response bias. But where is the "deviation from optimal reasoning?" Sally has not made a logical error. She knows perfectly well that her opinion was not 100% accurate; respecting Jim's feelings was just more important to her than being accurate. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Paul Ralph (Lancaster University) (talk) 23:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Courtesy bias into Response bias
This subject is a type of response bias which is not sufficiently notable in itself. Salimfadhley (talk) 10:04, 11 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree. Courtesy bias is a form of response bias, and can be merged fairly easily. 15:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)Bibeyjj (talk)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)