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Similarity and Sensitive Topics Survey: When Similarity Elicits Answers to Intimate Questions in Survey Research

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Abstract

People interact more readily with someone who they think they have something in common with. We hypothesized that participants would become less reluctant to respond to intimate questions when these questions were administered by an interviewer who possessed an incidental similarity with the participant. Male and female confederates approached male and female passersby respectively for their participation in a survey on sexual behavior in which the questions became increasingly intimate. At the beginning of the survey, the interviewer pointed out (similarity condition) or not (no similarity condition) that he/she shared the same birthday as the participant. It was found that the participants in the similarity condition responded to more questions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Management de Bretagne-Sud (IMABS), Université de Bretagne-Sud UFR DSEG, rue de la loi, Vannes, 56000, France

    Nicolas Guéguen

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  1. Nicolas Guéguen
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Correspondence to Nicolas Guéguen.

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Guéguen, N. Similarity and Sensitive Topics Survey: When Similarity Elicits Answers to Intimate Questions in Survey Research. Curr Psychol 34, 58–65 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-014-9240-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-014-9240-7

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