在有关生物医学和社会科学研究中，常常让人们报告他们的想法、感受和行为。当这些研究内容被重复报告后，研究人员发现重复测量的结果呈现下降趋势，并称这种模式为“衰减效应”，即在后面的报告出现偏差。但也有另一种可能就是初始评估时的“提升偏差”。这种“提升偏差”在报告内部状态时比外显行为更明显，在报告消极心理状态和身体症状时比报告积极心理状态时更明显。因此在采用主观报告的所有研究中要注意这种初始阶段“提升偏差”。
People’s reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an “attenuation effect,” suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports. However, the pattern could also be consistent with an initial elevation bias. We present systematic, experimental investigations of this effect in four field studies (study 1: n = 870; study 2: n = 246; study 3: n = 870; study 4: n = 141). Findings show clear support for an initial elevation bias rather than a later decline. This bias is larger for reports of internal states than for behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. We encourage increased awareness and investigation of this initial elevation bias in all research using subjective reports.
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