Response-Style Effects, Response-Shift Bias and a Bogus-Pipeline

Abstract

The influence of response-style effects on subjects' self-ratings was assessed, utilizing a bogus-pipeline technique. The design was a pretest-posttest design, including retrospective preratings. Subjects were 73 psychology freshmen fulfilling a course requirement. Subjects were led to believe that the veracity of their self-reports could be checked by means of objective measures. The bogus-pipeline induction in the pretesting did lower self-reported preratings and consequently eliminated response-shift bias, defined as a significant mean difference between conventional and retrospective preratings. The results show no contradiction of earlier research. Since a response shift occurred in the experimental nonbogus-pipeline condition, it was concluded that use of a bogus-pipeline technique can improve self-reported pretest scores and subsequently eliminate response-shift-bias effects. Data furthermore show that the retrospective pretest is rather robust for procedural differences.