Functionality of the Crosswise Model for assessing sensitive or transgressive behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Tools for reliable assessment of socially sensitive or transgressive behavior warrant constant development. Among them, the Crosswise Model (CM) has gained considerable attention. Therefore, we systematically reviewed and meta-analysed empirical applications of CM and addressed a gap for quality assessment of indirect estimation models. To our knowledge, the present study presents the first systematic review of the functionality of CM, and quality assessment of CM and indirect estimation models in general. Guided by the PRISMA protocol, we identified 35 empirical studies from electronic database and reference searches, of which 25 were comparative validation studies (CVS) with CM estimates and direct question (DQ). Results of the meta-analysis indicate that CM outperforms DQ on the “more is better” validation criterion, and increasingly so with more behavior sensitivity. However, little difference was observed between DQ and CM estimates for items with DQ prevalence around 50%. Based on empirical evidence available to date, our study provides support for the superiority of CM to DQ. Despite some limitations, CM is a valuable and promising tool for assessing sensitive or transgressive behavior.