I’d rather be nice than honest

Abstract

The interaction between interviewer and respondent is one of the most significant sources to interviewer bias, with respondents often answering questions in a way they think is socially desirable. This bias, called the social desirability bias, has been studied in a variety of context and found to influence the validity of data collected. In this study, we examine whether the national identity of an interviewer will bias results in a survey on tourist destinations when there is a match between interviewer nationality and target destination. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, the main finding is that respondents will evaluate more positively an advertisement, the attractiveness, and the people from a country if interviewed by someone from that country compared to being interviewed by someone not from the target country. Our results imply that the practice of interviewing tourists while being at a destination, by a local or domestic interviewer, is a situation severely prone to biased results. Theoretical and managerial implications are offered based on these findings.