Preventing satisficing: A narrative review

Social scientists have long agreed that satisficing behavior increases error and reduces the validity of survey data. There have been numerous reviews on detecting satisficing behavior, but preventing this behavior has received less attention. The current narrative review provides empirically supported guidance on preventing satisficing by combining insight from related research streams (e.g. careless responding, random responding, insufficient effort responding, inattentive responding, straightlining, speeding). By uniting what is known about this broad range of problematic responding, a suite of preventive techniques can be highlighted, thus maximizing the utility of these literatures for researchers and practitioners. To optimize the contributions of this review, we complement the benefits of suggested preventive approaches with the potential drawbacks of taking the proposed steps.