ELI5: How do people get data or statistics for things that people often lie about or private matters?

r/

Like when a study says X% of people are sexually active, or X of 10 people cheat on their significant others? Is there just so much data that the truthful answers outweigh the possible lies by such a degree that you can just chart it out?

Comments

  1. boopbaboop Avatar

    Typically they gather the data with the understanding that it’ll be anonymous. Some people might still lie, but less than if it wasn’t anonymous. 

  2. Lexinoz Avatar

    Anonymous questionairs sent out by research departments who specifically work with collecting exactly this for exactly this reason.