Inconsistent reporting of life experiences: What people think and how they explain it?

Assessment of life experiences relies mainly on cross-sectional retrospective design, despite the concerns regarding inconsistent reports. Studies suggest that some individuals change their answers when asked repeatedly, but common opinions underlying this behaviour remain unknown. Our study explored personal perceptions regarding inconsistent reporting and identified associated reasons including individual, experiences-related, and design-related characteristics. Seventy-two individuals, enrolled in a longitudinal study about life experiences, answered a measure about general perceptions and involved reasons. Participants seemed to be aware that inconsistent reporting is a common behaviour, which highly impact on research. A cluster analysis revealed two clusters (i.e., variables involved versus not involved). Most disagreed that sociodemographic variables influence inconsistency, whereas memory, mood, valence, impact, mode of data collection, and interviewer features were pointed as key-variables. Our results suggest that inconsistent reporting is not straightforward and it is probably rooted in a varied and complex set of variables.
A avaliação de experiências de vida tem-se baseado principalmente no design retrospetivo transversal,
apesar das preocupações com as inconsistências no relato. A investigação tem sugerido que alguns
indivíduos alteram as suas respostas quando questionados repetidamente sobre as suas experiências
de vida, embora as perceções do senso-comum sobre esse comportamento permaneçam desconhecidas.
Este estudo procurou explorar as perceções individuais sobre o relato inconsistente e identificar os
motivos associados a este comportamento, incluindo características individuais, da experiência e do
design. Setenta e dois indivíduos, a participarem num estudo longitudinal sobre experiências de vida,
responderam a um questionário sobre perceções gerais e motivos envolvidos. Os participantes
pareceram estar cientes de que o relato inconsistente é um comportamento comum, com grande
impacto na investigação. A análise de clusters indicou existirem dois clusters: variáveis envolvidas
vs. não envolvidas no relato inconsistente. A maioria dos participantes discordou que as variáveis
sociodemográficas influenciam a inconsistência do relato, enquanto a memória, o humor, a valência,
o impacto, a estratégia de recolha de dados e as caraterísticas do/a entrevistador/a foram identificadas
como variáveis-chave. Os resultados sugerem que o relato inconsistente não configura um fenómeno
simples e provavelmente está enraizado num conjunto variado e complexo de variáveis.
This manuscript is part of a doctoral dissertation, which had the support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through the PhD grant with the reference SFRH/BD/76022/2011, funded by
POPH-QREN-Typology 4.1-Advanced Training, reimbursed by the European Social Fund and national funds from State Budget. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho
(UID/PSI/01662/2013), and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through
COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653).