Compare methods

	Bogus Pipeline	Lost Letter Technique
Field	Social Psychology	Social Psychology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1971	1965
Originator	Edward Jones & Harold Sigall	Stanley Milgram, Leon Mann & Susan Harter
Type	Methodological technique to reduce social-desirability bias	Unobtrusive field measure of attitudes
Seminal source	Jones, E. E., & Sigall, H. (1971). The bogus pipeline: A new paradigm for measuring affect and attitude. Psychological Bulletin, 76(5), 349-364.	Milgram, S., Mann, L., & Harter, S. (1965). The lost-letter technique: A tool of social research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 29(3), 437-438.
Aliases	Bogus Pipeline Procedure, Fake Lie Detector Method, Pipeline-to-the-Truth Technique	Lost-Letter Technique, Dropped Letter Method, Return-Rate Attitude Measure
Related	3	3
Summary	The bogus pipeline, devised by Jones and Sigall in 1971, is a methodological technique for reducing social-desirability bias in the measurement of attitudes, especially sensitive ones such as prejudice. Participants are connected to an impressive-looking apparatus and convinced that it functions as an accurate lie detector capable of revealing their true feelings. Believing that dishonesty will be exposed, participants are motivated to report their attitudes truthfully rather than giving socially acceptable answers. In the classic procedure participants are asked to predict what the machine will say about them, which encourages them to consult and disclose their genuine attitudes. By comparing reports given under the bogus pipeline with ordinary self-reports, researchers can estimate the extent of social-desirability distortion and obtain more candid measures of socially sensitive attitudes. The technique was an early and influential solution to a fundamental problem in attitude measurement.	The lost letter technique, introduced by Milgram, Mann, and Harter in 1965, is an unobtrusive field method for measuring community attitudes by exploiting a small act of everyday helping. Researchers distribute stamped, addressed envelopes in public places as if they had been accidentally dropped, with the letters addressed to different organizations representing varying causes (for example, a neutral individual versus a politically charged group). A passerby who finds a letter must decide whether to mail it, ignore it, or destroy it, and the proportion of letters returned for each addressee serves as an index of public sentiment toward that cause -- letters addressed to favored organizations are mailed more often than those to disfavored ones. Because finders do not know they are participating in a study, the measure sidesteps social-desirability bias and yields a behavioral, aggregate indicator of attitudes that complements self-report surveys.