STUDY: SOMETIMES, PEOPLE LIE ON SURVEYS. Do ‘jokesters’ distort research on gay youth?

A controversial new study argues that a host of research on gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers could be based on faulty data because of confused teens and “jokesters” who later said they were straight.

The report focuses on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey that followed a nationally representative group of tens of thousands of teens into adulthood. Add Health, as it is known, is considered one of the most important sources of data on the lives of young people, including those who are gay, lesbian and bisexual. . . .

Earlier research on the Add Health survey found some signs of dishonesty, the study noted. For instance, hundreds of teens said they had an artificial hand, arm, leg or foot, yet few reported the same thing when interviewed at home. The new study found “inconsistent” boys and girls were more delinquent and more likely to say they weren’t honest when they filled out the survey. . . .

The existence of “inconsistent” teens isn’t new to social science researchers. “It’s not that we saw something that no one else had seen,” Savin-Williams added. “But they kept using the data. … People should have said, ‘Hold on here. Who are these kids?’”