People don’t always tell the truth, even if they mean to.
Entire industries are built on the universal reality that people tend to mis-state, exaggerate, or stretch the truth, whether they mean to or not.
In a study conducted by Psychology Today, it was found that one-third of participants told three to seven lies a week: “Regarding lies told in the past six months, most reported lying for altruistic (64%) or secretive (60%) reasons. About half lied to avoid being negatively evaluated, 43% for prosocial reasons, and 40% to avoid being punished.”
So while their reasons for being dishonest are mostly pure, they make your survey results anything but.
Whether you’re making major go-to-market decisions, developing a singular campaign, or in the early stages of innovation, you need to know who your audience really is as well as who they want to be. The way to do that is by going where the truth prevails because of the illusion that nobody is watching – social media.
When you rely solely on surveys, your data is likely flawed, and your most important decisions will follow suit. Whether you use surveys, supplement survey data with social listening, or don't have a formal research process in place at all, it’s important to know exactly why and where survey takers are likely to fib.
It’s a perception thing.
Depending on what you’re asking about and who’s asking, our answers to certain questions are more likely to reflect an idealized version of who we see ourselves to be rather than a realistic one.
This can stem from a desire to feel superior to others, to justify purchases, or to simply boast.
For example, if an athletic apparel brand is asking you to take a survey, and they ask you how many times you workout per week, you may be more likely to say a number of times that you aspire to, while some survey takers may say a number that just makes them feel better about not working out at all, all because of who’s asking.
How many times have you seen advertisements or gotten an email with a subject line that reads something like “take our survey and get a $25 gift card!” or “take our survey for a chance to win”? Probably quite a few.
That’s because it works... to get people in the door. That doesn’t mean much by way of accuracy when they’re only participating to collect. They’re less likely to care about their answers or to consider them deeply. Especially if they’re taking the survey to be entered into some kind of sweepstakes. Despite what the fine print says, they’re more likely to give flattering answers that they think will help them win. Respondents may also lie about their demographics or habits in order to fit the required profile for a survey and to help ensure they qualify for whatever prize or incentive is being offered.
Social conditions prime people to give answers that are “acceptable”, even if they deviate from how the respondent actually feels.
This can go a variety of ways, with respondents often not wanting to appear too “old school”, uneducated, privileged, or out-of-touch.
Respondents are also more likely to give answers that they believe will be helping out the researcher.
An extension of the social desirability bias, this reason is also similar to respondents wanting to appear better than they are but for external reasons. They may even fabricate responses entirely to make surveys go faster, especially if they’re being conducted in-person, and they don’t want to appear difficult or make the researcher's job “harder”.
If a respondent finds a survey question too personal, revealing, or awkward, they won’t want to answer it.
This issue is especially prevalent with brands in spaces like sexual wellness, harm-reduction, and personal finance.
A major benefit of going in the wild and leveraging social listening to conduct your research is that social media is where conversations around topics that are often considered “taboo” in more formalized settings are apt to happen more openly and without reserve.
There’s lots of reasons why respondents might lie on a survey. That doesn’t mean that surveys are rendered completely useless by virtue of a natural human behavior – but just because you know what might make people lie doesn’t mean you can get them to stop, and it doesn’t mean your insights become accurate.
Combining surveys with in-feed testing is a great way to pinpoint and curb inaccuracies in your data.
Taking the big-idea concepts you’ve already worked on with surveys and leveraging in-feed testing can help you to get ahead of your next innovation before the competition by going where your audience actually lives.