Deviant Research: Deception,Male Internet Escorts,and Response Rates

Some social scientists who study deviant groups assume that it is necessary to use deception in order to avoid the bias associated with the decision of some subjects to not participate in such studies. Selective non-participation can lead to low response rates and, thereby, adversely affect the representativeness of the sample. This study directly tests for a differential in response rates to data gathered from an e-mail request for information on male-for-male escort fees sent by a sociologist with data gathered from an e-mail that appeared to be from a potential client asking for rates. Response rates for the social science and “client” e-mails are 15% and 60%, respectively.