The ‘Liar Paradox’ in Surveys

“My bosses have the communication skills of a banana” – Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.

Survey geeks and research-curious folks may enjoy the Bartleby column in this week’s The Economist, which looks at the secrets to a good employee survey.

It explores the ‘liar paradox’ in conducting surveys and offers some good tips for getting unvarnished feedback.

In both employee and client surveys, respondents can often see what the ‘right’ answer is, even if it’s not the truest one. Promises of confidentiality and anonymity can help, but only to a point so in designing surveys we must incentivise honesty as best we can.

A recent study by Emma Zaal of the University of Groningen asked questions like whether respondents had sent text messages while driving a car. The inclusion of face-saving options such as ‘occasionally’ or ‘only when no other option’ elicited a very different set of answers compared to blunt yes/no options.

This is important whenever we are asking about relationships, be it with management or with customers. A survey isn’t a neat objective exercise, it has the potential to affect the interactions it’s monitoring.

So think about whether or not your surveying allows for saving face. Enabling someone to communicate, ‘Very good, but with room for improvement’ makes them more likely to respond than if they risk looking disloyal or damaging a key commercial relationship.