Which bias is Griffin Hill designed to minimize in its practice?

• A. Social desirability bias
• B. Recency bias
• C. Anchoring bias
• D. Confirmation bias

Answer: (A)

Griffin Hill’s practice is built to reduce social desirability bias, the tendency for people to present themselves in a favorable light rather than report honestly. In integrity testing, this bias can distort results by making respondents seem more honest or trustworthy than they truly are. To minimize it, the practice emphasizes making responses as truthful as possible: ensuring confidentiality, using question formats that discourage merely “looking good” (such as forced-choice or indirect items), and including validity checks to spot inconsistent or overly favorable answers. With these safeguards, the data better reflect actual behavior and attitudes rather than a desire to appear acceptable.

Other biases don’t target the honesty of responses in the same way. Recency bias relates to weighting recent events more heavily, anchoring bias involves sticking to an initial piece of information, and confirmation bias is about favoring information that confirms preconceptions. While they can influence thinking in some contexts, they’re not the primary concern Griffin Hill designs to address in integrity testing.