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How to ask sensitive multiple‐choice questions

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  • Andreas Lagerås
  • Mathias Lindholm

Abstract

Motivated by recent failures of polling to estimate populist party support, we propose and analyze two methods for asking sensitive multiple‐choice questions where the respondent retains some privacy and therefore might answer more truthfully. The first method consists of asking for the true choice along with a choice picked at random. The other method presents a list of choices and asks whether the preferred one is on the list or not. Different respondents are shown different lists. The methods are easy to explain, which makes it likely that the respondent understands how her privacy is protected and may thus entice her to participate in the survey and answer truthfully. The methods are also easy to implement and scale up.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Lagerås & Mathias Lindholm, 2020. "How to ask sensitive multiple‐choice questions," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 47(2), pages 397-424, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scjsta:v:47:y:2020:i:2:p:397-424
    DOI: 10.1111/sjos.12411
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    6. Heiko Groenitz, 2014. "A new privacy-protecting survey design for multichotomous sensitive variables," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 211-224, February.
    7. Fernando Esponda & Kael Huerta & Victor M Guerrero, 2016. "A Statistical Approach to Provide Individualized Privacy for Surveys," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mathias Lindholm & Ronald Richman & Andreas Tsanakas & Mario V. Wuthrich, 2022. "A multi-task network approach for calculating discrimination-free insurance prices," Papers 2207.02799, arXiv.org.

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