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Social desirability bias 0:50
A 50-second explainer of Social desirability bias, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Social desirability bias demo
What this video covers
Social desirability bias is the tendency to answer in ways that make us look good rather than ways that are true - over-reporting the admirable, under-reporting the embarrassing. In research it means self-report drifts toward the flattering: people say they read the terms, exercise more, and skip the ads more than they really do, especially when someone's watching.
Ask it with a name attached and almost everyone "always reads the terms"; ask it anonymously and the honest, sheepish truth appears. Nobody lied exactly - they just gave the answer that felt respectable. That gap between the named and anonymous version is social desirability bias, and it's why "what people say" and "what people do" so rarely match.
