GVPT Associate Professor Calvert W. Jones Publishes New Study on Interviewer Gender Effects
Department of Government & Politics Professor Calvert W. Jones has recently co-authored the article, “Social Desirability and Political Sensitivity: Interviewer Gender Effects on Men in Five Arab Countries,” in Public Opinion Quarterly.
Survey research has rapidly expanded globally, but methodological work on data quality has mostly centered on U.S. and European settings. In contrast, this study examines the underexplored region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where gender norms and political sensitivities are especially salient.
Using nationally representative data from Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates, Jones and Mitchell explore how interviewer gender shapes what men report on both political and social questions.
Here are the key findings:
- On political topics (e.g. regime or government questions), men tend to give safer, more pro-regime responses when interviewed by men — possibly reflecting gendered expectations about political authority and accountability.
- On social issues (like income, religiosity, family status), men appear to adjust their responses to female interviewers, offering answers more consistent with social desirability or moral correctness.
- These effects vary by country, underscoring the importance of context — what works (or misleads) in one national setting may not generalize.
- Methodologically and theoretically, the paper encourages more fine-grained distinctions in how we think about question sensitivity (political vs social) and how gender, power, and local norms interact in shaping survey responses.
Why this matters:
Researchers using surveys in non-Western settings need to treat fieldworker attributes — especially gender — not as mere logistics but as potential structural influences on the data itself. This study offers both caution and guidance for designing more robust and trustworthy surveys in culturally complex settings.
Read the full findings in Public Opinion Quarterly
Published on Mon, 10/20/2025 - 13:56