Replication Data for: Survey Measures of Democratic Attitudes and Social Desirability Bias

Research on citizens' support for democracy predominantly relies on surveys. However, the possibility of social desirability biases (SDB) raises questions about their ability to capture the sincere attitudes of citizens toward democracy. We search for evidence of SDB in survey measures of democratic attitudes in three studies. The first two leverage variations in survey mode (self-completion vs. face-to-face) in the European Social Survey's democracy module, taking advantage of the well-established finding that interviewer absence facilitates the expression of less socially desirable opinions. The third study uses a double-list experiment to estimate the prevalence of an anti-democratic attitude. Across all studies, using data from as many as 24 European countries, we find no evidence that SDB inflates survey measures of democratic attitudes. These results significantly impact our understanding of democratic attitudes and the methodological toolkit for interested scholars.