Social Desirability Bias and the Prevalence of Self-Reported Conservation Behaviour Among Farmers

Agriculture is recognised globally as a major contributor to environmental degradation, habitat loss, and climate change. Having reliable data on the conservation behaviour of farmers is crucial to the evaluation of policy measures intended to reduce the harmful environmental effects of agriculture and promote sustainability. In responses to direct questions about conservation behaviours, the biasing of responses to appear more socially responsible has been found to be commonplace. From a policy perspective, the degree to which farmers might overstate the frequency with which they engage in behaviours that are desirable from a conservation perspective and understate the frequency with which they engage in behaviours that are undesirable because of social desirability bias is a matter of practical importance. In this paper we use, for the first time, crosswise questioning to investigate the influence of social desirability bias on self-reporting of conservation behaviour by farmers in New Zealand. We found that the effect of social desirability bias on self-reports of conservation behaviour by farmers in New Zealand is small. Consequently, self-reporting of conservation behaviour by farmers may be relied on when evaluating policies intended to promote sustainable development.