The bogus pipeline is a fake polygraph used to get participants to truthfully respond to emotional/affective questions in the survey. It is a technique used by
social psychologists
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. As an example,
social desirability
In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavi ...
is a common reason for warped survey results.
The bogus pipeline was first used in the spring of 1971 by psychology professor Harold Sigall at the
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
The University of Roc ...
. He wanted to know if prejudices of white people towards black people had really declined, as surveys reported, or if they were secretly still in force. Today, the bogus pipeline is still used when trying to measure an individual's affect or attitudes toward certain stimuli.
In this technique, the person whose attitude or emotion is being measured is told that they are being monitored by a machine or a
polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
(lie detector), resulting in more truthful answers. The electrodes and wires that are connected to this individual are actually fake. However, participants end up telling their true feelings and attitudes because they believe they are being monitored and that the real answers will surface regardless of their response. The bogus pipeline can be used to reduce bias because most people do not want to be "second-guessed" by a machine; it is assumed that people would be motivated to choose the "correct" answer so as not to show an incongruence in
attitude
Attitude may refer to:
Philosophy and psychology
* Attitude (psychology), an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value
* Metaphysics of presence
* Propositional attitude, a relational mental state connecting a person to a pro ...
.
[Jones, E., Sigall, H. (1971). "The Bogus Pipeline: A new paradigm for measuring affect and attitude". '']Psychological Bulletin
The ''Psychological Bulletin'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes evaluative and integrative research reviews and interpretations of issues in psychology, including both qualitative (narrative) and/or quantitative (meta-anal ...
'', 76 5, 349–364.
See also
*
Randomized response Randomised response is a research method used in structured survey interview. It was first proposed by S. L. Warner in 1965 and later modified by B. G. Greenberg and coauthors in 1969. It allows respondents to respond to sensitive issues (such as c ...
*
Unmatched count
In psychology and social research, unmatched count, or item count, is a technique to improve, through anonymity, the number of true answers to possibly embarrassing or self-incriminating questions. It is very simple to use but yields only the ''nu ...
References
External links
* Michele G. Alexander, Terri D. Fisher: Truth and consequences: using the bogus pipeline to examine sex differences in self-reported sexuality. ''The Journal of Sex Research'', Vol. 40, 2003 (Requires sign in to read)
Psychological attitude
Social science methodology