title: Social desirability and self-reported health risk behaviors in web-based research: three longitudinal studies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  These studies sought to investigate the relation between social desirability and self-reported health risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, drug use, smoking) in web-based research.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three longitudinal studies (Study 1: N = 5612, 51% women; Study 2: N = 619, 60%; Study 3: N = 846, 59%) among randomly selected members of two online panels (Dutch; German) using several social desirability measures (Marlowe-Crowne Scale; Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding; The Social Desirability Scale-17) were conducted.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Social desirability was not associated with self-reported current behavior or behavior frequency. Socio-demographics (age; sex; education) did not moderate the effect of social desirability on self-reported measures regarding health risk behaviors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The studies at hand provided no convincing evidence to throw doubt on the usefulness of the Internet as a medium to collect self-reports on health risk behaviors.
authors.affiliation: CAPHRI, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. rik.crutzen@maastrichtuniversity.nl
authors.forename: Rik
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Crutzen
authors.forename: Anja S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Göritz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012928:Social Desirability; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires