Mental Models - Response Bias 🍔

Issue #66

Do you try to tell the truth? Do others?

Do you agree a half truth is a whole lie, as the proverb says?

Does it matter if it’s fully conscious or not?

What is Response Bias?

In simple terms, response bias means that when people answer questions, they might not always tell the truth - their answer might have bias.

And this happens particularly when we are answering a question about ourselves. There is a difference between reported behavior - what we say we do - and actual behavior - what we really do.

The common examples of response bias focus on responses on surveys, when people often answer in a biased way because they want to to fit in or look good.

I know I get caught by this one when asked questions by any kind of health professional. If asked what I eat, I might say I like to eat steamed fish and vegetables for dinner, and the odd burger, but in fact the reverse is true - it’s the odd fish. Part is probably self delusion, part is wanting to look good in front of the doctor.

Why is this interesting?

When looking at existing data or collecting new data - maybe for customer research - it’s crucial to try to look at what people actually do, rather than what they say they do. If you can get data of what people actually do then great, but if you can only get reported data like surveys or interviews then keep response bias front of mind. Understanding the gap between what people claim versus their actual behavior is essential for making the right decisions for any product or service.

It’s worth being aware of personally too. I’ll leave you with this hilarious data-supported take from a data scientist’s book Everybody Lies:

Everybody lies.

People lie about how many drinks they had on the way home. They lie about how often they go to the gym, how much those new shoes cost, whether they read that book. They call in sick when they’re not. They say they’ll be in touch when they won’t. They say it’s not about you when it is. They say they love you when they don’t. They say they’re happy while in the dumps. They say they like women when they really like men. People lie to friends. They lie to bosses. They lie to kids. They lie to parents. They lie to doctors. They lie to husbands. They lie to wives.

They lie to themselves.

And they damn sure lie to surveys.

Photo by Agence Olloweb

Want to go deeper?

📖 Everybody Lies is a fun and fascinating read in the growing pop-data science genre. It’s a illuminating insight into humanity today via the huge Google search dataset studied by the author, and really drives home the message:

Don’t trust what people tell you; trust what they do.

🤔 Some people hold honesty as a very high value. I’m not sure I am evolved enough for Sam Harris’s ideas on lying, but they sure are thought provoking:

“By lying, we deny others a view of the world as it is. Our dishonesty not only influences the choices they make, it often determines the choices they can make—and in ways we cannot always predict. Every lie is a direct assault upon the autonomy of those we lie to.”

🤔 I wonder what the interplay is with response bias and Decision Fatigue (although suffering from replication issues I find it’s still a useful concept)

😂 This reminded me of the Morning Guy Seinfeld bit, which will make you smile:

Revisit related mental models

🧠 Build your latticework:

• The Hawthorne Effect we change when being watched

• The Theory of Planned Behavior wikipedia, heavier psychology

• The Future-Self Delusion a old post lamenting my stasis