The shadow of social desirability bias: evidence from reassessing the sources of political trust in China

Abstract Recent scholarship has emphasized methodological innovations to mitigate preference falsification in public opinion data, yet systematic scrutiny of bias in regression analyses remains limited. Drawing on analyses of political trust in China, we offer three key insights. First, determining the direction of social desirability bias in regression estimates—whether over- or underestimation—is challenging ex ante . Second, analyses of two nationally representative Chinese surveys, one incorporating a list experiment, cast doubt on the purported positive effect of social welfare expansion on political trust. Extending beyond social welfare and the Chinese case, we find similar biases when regressions rely on direct questions. Third, we show that certain identification strategies can partially mitigate regression bias when direct questions are unavoidable.