Exploring the limits of self-reports and reasoned action: An investigation of the psychology of tax evasion behavior.

We explored the limitations of self-reports as substitutes for observation of deviant behavior. Results of a study conducted in The Netherlands indicated negligible correspondence between respondents' self-reports of tax evasion and officially documented behavior. Nonsignificant correlations were obtained despite the fact that all government claims against the respondents had been settled, unprotested, before this study began and despite the respondents' awareness that the accuracy of their self-reports could be checked against their tax records. In addition, the results suggest that different explanatory variables may be correlated with each type of behavioral measure. In this instance, attitude toward the act (Aact) measures and subjective norm measures exhibited significant correlations with the self-report data but not with officially documented behavior, and measures of more broadly focused personal dispositions predicted actual behavior but not self-reports. Such outcomes suggest that the explanatory power of the theory of reasoned action may not extend to the domain of socially proscribed behaviors where self-presentation concerns are likely to prompt both misrepresentations of past behavior and reports of attitudes and perceived norms consistent with those misrepresentations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)