Editing Kinsey Reports (section)

=== Volunteer bias ===
In the 1950s, [[psychologist]] [[Abraham Maslow]] stated that Kinsey did not consider "[[volunteer bias]]." The data represented only those volunteering to participate in discussion of taboo topics. Most Americans were reluctant to discuss the intimate details of their sex lives even with their spouses and close friends. Before the publication of Kinsey's reports, Maslow tested Kinsey's volunteers for bias. He concluded that Kinsey's sample was unrepresentative of the general population.<ref>Maslow, A. H., and Sakoda, J. (1952). Volunteer error in the Kinsey study, Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 1952 Apr;47(2):259-62.</ref>

The charge of an over-reliance on volunteers is also critiqued in the Gathorne-Hardy biography. ''All'' surveys rely on volunteers.<ref name=":0" /> Kinsey attempted to correct for this by gathering as many "100 percent groups" as he could--that is, collecting all (or nearly all) of the sex histories of a given group that had gathered together for reasons other than sex, such as law societies, sororities, or even a small group of hikers.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |title=Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-253-33734-8 |location=Bloomington, IN |pages=144-147}}</ref> Kinsey would ask the president or leader of the group to agree to an interview, and then that leader's influence would get him an initial batch of volunteers from the group, a second batch who did not want to be seen volunteering but would agree to be interviewed, and then a third batch brought in by, essentially, peer pressure.<ref name=":1" /> While all the participants were still volunteers, he got interviews and thus samples he would not have otherwise gotten. In addition, the groups themselves, though any one was not representative of the population as a whole, provided a random element while encouraging greater participation.<ref name=":1" /> These "100 percent groups" made up about a quarter of Kinsey's overall data.<ref name=":1" />