Are They Actually Sustainable? The Social Desirability Bias in Sustainable Consumption Surveys

Abstract

Self-report survey is a convenient and widely used method to assess consumers’ sustainable consumption attitudes, intentions, or behaviors for scientific or practical purposes. However, responses given by participants to these surveys hold certain biases, and literature provides abundant evidence that social desirability bias (SDB) is one of the direst types of response bias. SDB is defined as the output of the tendency that makes respondents look favorable with regard to culturally derived norms and standards in test-taking situations. There are some contradicting results regarding the existence of SDB in sustainable consumption surveys. In this context, the present study’s main goal is to test the vulnerability of the pro-environmental intention measurements to SDB and reinforce the literature by providing empirical evidence about this bias. Besides, this study provides insight into the relative efficacy of several frequently used SDB scales. To achieve the purpose of this study, an experiment with a single-group pre-test, post-test design was conducted. Two survey applications with a one-month interval were implemented to 118 participants wherein anonymity was manipulated. The results revealed that the pro-environmental intention scale is vulnerable to SDB. In other words, respondents tend to overreport about their pro-environmental intentions, particularly in non-anonymous survey conditions. Moreover, it was found that distinct SDB scales have different levels of relationship with respective scales of sustainable consumption intention. It is expected that the results of this study highlight the need for considering SDB while using self-report measures for assessing sustainable consumption behaviors or attitudes. © 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.