ABSTRACT
There are also social pressures at work when prejudice is measured. Prejudice is usually assessed by self-report questionnaires. However, such questionnaires are affected by social desirability bias, which is the tendency to give socially approved (but deliberately distorted) answers to questions. Evidence of such bias was discussed by Jones and Sigall (1971). Whites in the United States expressed positive and nonprejudiced attitudes towards blacks on a questionnaire. They were then connected to a bogus pipeline. This is a machine with flashing lights, which the experimenter claims can monitor the participant’s physiological responses and reveal his or her true opinions. The participants were asked about their attitudes towards blacks while connected to this bogus pipeline. They expressed much more negative attitudes towards blacks than they had on the questionnaire.
