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Scholarly research has consistently shown that teachers present negative assessments of and attitudes toward migrant students. However, previous studies have not clearly addressed the distinction between implicit and explicit prejudices, or identified their underlying sources. This study identifies the explicit and implicit prejudices held by elementary and middle school teachers regarding the learning abilities of an ethnic minority group: Haitian students within the Chilean educational system. We use a list experiment to assess how social desirability and intergroup attitudes toward minority students influence teachers' prejudices. The findings reveal that teachers harbor implicit prejudices towards Haitian students and are truthful in reporting their attitudes, thereby contradicting the desirability bias hypothesis. We suggest that teachers rely on stereotypes associated with the students' nationality when assessing Haitian students' learning abilities. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to theories grounded in stereotypes and intergroup attitudes.

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The illegal use of natural resources, manifested in activities like illegal logging, poaching, and illegal wildlife trade, poses a global threat to biodiversity. Addressing them will require an understanding of the magnitude of and factors influencing these activities. However, assessing such behaviors is challenging because of their illegal nature, making participants less willing to admit engaging in them. We compared how indirect (randomized response technique) and direct questioning techniques performed when assessing non-sensitive (fish consumption, used as negative control) and sensitive (illegal consumption of wild animals) behaviors across an urban gradient (small towns, large towns, and the large city of Manaus) in the Brazilian Amazon. We conducted 1,366 surveys of randomly selected households to assess the magnitude of consumption of meat from wild animals (i.e., wild meat) and its socioeconomic drivers, which included years the head of household lived in urban areas, age of the head of household, household size, presence of children, and poverty. The indirect method revealed higher rates of wildlife consumption in larger towns than did the direct method. Results for small towns were similar between the two methods. The indirect method also revealed socioeconomic factors influencing wild meat consumption that were not detected with direct methods. For instance, the indirect method showed that wild meat consumption increased with age of the head of household, and decreased with poverty and years the head of household lived in urban areas. Simultaneously, when responding to direct questioning, households with characteristics associated with higher wild meat consumption, as estimated from indirect questioning, tended to underreport consumption to a larger degree than households with lower wild meat consumption. Results for fish consumption, used as negative control, were similar for both methods. Our findings suggest that people edit their answers to varying degrees when responding to direct questioning, potentially biasing conclusions, and indirect methods can improve researchers' ability to identify patterns of illegal activities when the sensitivity of such activities varies across spatial (e.g., urban gradient) or social (e.g., as a function of age) contexts. This work is broadly applicable to other geographical regions and disciplines that deal with sensitive human behaviors.

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Abstract Social desirability seems to enhance well-being measures because individuals tend to increase the degree of their satisfaction and happiness resulting in response artifacts and in a serious threat to the validity of self-reported data. This paper explores social desirability bias in self-reported subjective well-being, controlling for several socio-demographic variables such as gender, age, education, marital/relationship status, and employment status. This is in order to test whether social desirability has incremental validity in predicting some well-being measures. Three different facets of well-being are proposed which deal with subjective happiness, general life satisfaction, and gratitude and loneliness, respectively regarded as a positive and negative emotional response. Through a web-based survey a convenience sample of 170 participants completed an online questionnaire including measures of social desirability, subjective happiness, life satisfaction, gratitude, and loneliness. Correlation analyses and two-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. All well-being measures show modest significant correlations with social desirability ranging from 0.235 to 0.309, except subjective happiness. Social desirability accounted for from about 3% to 6% of the variance of these measures, after controlling for socio-demographic variables. Social desirability seems thus to play little role in well-being self-report measures, as revealed by previous studies. Some limitations are discussed, as well as issues about social desirability bias in online investigation.

Resumen La deseabilidad social parece mejorar las medidas de bienestar, pues los individuos tienden a aumentar el grado de satisfacción y felicidad que resulta en artefactos de respuesta y en una seria amenaza para la validez de los datos por autoinforme. Este artículo explora el sesgo de deseabilidad social en el bienestar subjetivo autodeclarado, controlando variables sociodemográficas, como el género, la edad, la educación, el estado civil/familiar y la situación laboral, con el fin de probar si la deseabilidad social tiene un incremento en la validez para predecir algunas medidas de bienestar. Se proponen tres facetas del bienestar que tratan de la felicidad subjetiva: 1. la satisfacción general con la vida, 2. la gratitud y 3. la soledad, respectivamente, consideradas como una respuesta emocional positiva y negativa. A través de una encuesta en línea, una muestra de conveniencia de 170 participantes completó un cuestionario en línea que incluía medidas de deseabilidad social, felicidad subjetiva, satisfacción con la vida, gratitud y soledad. Se realizaron análisis de correlación y análisis de regresión jerárquica de dos etapas. Todas las medidas de bienestar muestran modestas correlaciones significativas con deseabilidad social que van desde 0.235 a 0.309, excepto la felicidad subjetiva. La deseabilidad social representó entre 3 y 6 % de la varianza de estas medidas, después de controlar las variables sociodemográficas. Por tanto, la deseabilidad social parece desempeñar un papel pequeño en las medidas de autorreporte de bienestar, como lo revelaron estudios previos. Se discuten algunas limitaciones y cuestiones sobre el sesgo de deseabilidad social en la investigación en en línea.

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Epilepsy is a major health issue in rural areas of developing countries. However, heterogeneity of epilepsy prevalence in different studies precludes assessment of the magnitude of the problem. Using similar protocols, two population-based surveys were conducted 12 years apart (2003 and 2015) in a rural Ecuadorian village (Atahualpa). The only difference was a higher people compliance with interviewers during the second survey. Epilepsy prevalence in the 2003 survey was 13.5 per 1,000 (18/1,332) in villagers aged ≥20 years. This rate increased to 26.8 per 1,000 (41/1,530) in the 2015 survey. Thirty-three persons with epilepsy detected during the second survey lived in the village in 2003; six of them had seizures starting after 2003. Of the remaining 27 cases, 13 (48%) denied their problem during the first survey. Further interview revealed that denial was related to lack of confidence with unacquainted field personnel. Social Desirability Scale-17 scores were lower in those who admitted having epilepsy than in those who denied their condition (p = 0.048). Lack of confidence with interviewers and a social desirability bias account for a sizable proportion of epilepsy denial in the study population, and may explain heterogeneity of epilepsy prevalence reported in studies conducted in poor rural settings.

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La deseabilidad social del conductor se refiere a las descripciones positivamente sesgadas que las personas hacen al evaluar su propio comportamiento al conducir. Se trata de un factor que puede afectar la validez de los auto-informes, por ello, resulta necesario evaluar su presencia y posibles efectos. Este trabajo analiza las propiedades psicométricas de la Escala de Deseabilidad Social del Conductor (DSDS) en una muestra argentina de población general. Se aplicó a una muestra de 332 conductores de la ciudad de Mar del Plata la escala DSDS en diferentes condiciones de administración, conjuntamente con un cuestionario de datos socio-descriptivos y medidas de estilos de conducción (MDSI) y personalidad (ZQPK-50). Los resultados indican un comportamiento globalmente satisfactorio de la versión en español de la DSDS. Se obtuvo evidencia interna y externa de validez. No obstante, los resultados sugieren que podría tratarse tanto de una medida específica de sesgo de deseabilidad como de una medida relacionada con estilo de conducción.

Driver Social Desirability refers to positive biased self-descriptions given by drivers. As it could affect self-reported results, its assessment is necesary. The present study analyzes the psychometric properties of the Driver Social Desirability Scale (DSDS) in an Argentine sample. A sample of 332 drivers from Mar del Plata city was collected in different administration conditions. Participants answer a descriptive socio-demographic questionnaire, driving style measures (MDSI), and personality measures (ZKPQ-50) under four different administration conditions. A 2x2 quasiexperimental factor design was used to assess possible effects of social desirability bias. The first manipulated factor was type of administration (self-administration vs. face-to-face administration). The second manipulated factor was the anonymity of responses (anonimous vs. non- anonimous conditions). Results indicated good overall properties for the argentinean version of the DSDS. Evidence on the external and internal validity of DSDS was also gathered. However, results obtained suggest that DSDS could assess a extremely careful and law abiding driving style besides driver social desirability.

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La deseabilidad social del conductor se refiere a las descripciones positivamente sesgadas que las personas hacen al evaluar su propio comportamiento al conducir. Se trata de un factor que puede afectar la validez de los auto-informes, por ello, resulta necesario evaluar su presencia y posibles efectos. Este trabajo analiza las propiedades psicométricas de la Escala de Deseabilidad Social del Conductor (DSDS) en una muestra argentina de población general. Se aplicó a una muestra de 332 conductores de la ciudad de Mar del Plata la escala DSDS en diferentes condiciones de administración, conjuntamente con un cuestionario de datos socio-descriptivos y medidas de estilos de conducción (MDSI) y personalidad (ZQPK-50). Los resultados indican un comportamiento globalmente satisfactorio de la versión en español de la DSDS. Se obtuvo evidencia interna y externa de validez. No obstante, los resultados sugieren que podría tratarse tanto de una medida específica de sesgo de deseabilidad como de una medida relacionada con estilo de conducción.(AU)

Driver Social Desirability refers to positive biased self-descriptions given by drivers. As it could affect self-reported results, its assessment is necesary. The present study analyzes the psychometric properties of the Driver Social Desirability Scale (DSDS) in an Argentine sample. A sample of 332 drivers from Mar del Plata city was collected in different administration conditions. Participants answer a descriptive socio-demographic questionnaire, driving style measures (MDSI), and personality measures (ZKPQ-50) under four different administration conditions. A 2x2 quasiexperimental factor design was used to assess possible effects of social desirability bias. The first manipulated factor was type of administration (self-administration vs. face-to-face administration). The second manipulated factor was the anonymity of responses (anonimous vs. non- anonimous conditions). Results indicated good overall properties for the argentinean version of the DSDS. Evidence on the external and internal validity of DSDS was also gathered. However, results obtained suggest that DSDS could assess a extremely careful and law abiding driving style besides driver social desirability.(AU)

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