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Data from a split-ballot experiment show that offering Rs an alternative position on an issue not only affects the marginals, but also influences whether Rs will give an opinion at all. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that these form effects can occur despite the use of filter questions that theoretically screen out those who tend to be most susceptible to such effects: the less educated or uninformed. The analysis does not provide evidence, however, that less educated Rs are indeed more affected by differences in question format & that they are much more likely to "acquiesce" to one-sided agree/disagree forms. In discussing the results, an information-processing model of question form effects & a methodological strategy to generate further research on a much-needed theory of the survey instrument are developed. 4 Tables, Appendix. HA.

Independent field experiments in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area indicate that changes in question order & context may account for an apparently precipitous decline of interest in politics at the time of the Center for Political Studies 1978 American National Election Study. Evidence from a question order experiment with the Survey Research Center/Center for Political Studies "feeling thermometers" also suggests that such contextual artifacts may not be atypical. Indeed, because of the many changes in the context & organization of the election studies over the years, context effects represent plausible rival hypotheses for a number of inexplicable shifts & trends in the time-series. In testing these hypotheses, an information-processing model of how Rs infer their political "states of mind" from observations of their own question-answering behavior in the survey interview are derived & validated. In addition, the wide applicability of the model to substantive problems in the discipline & its implications for the survey-based paradigm in political behavior research are illustrated. 4 Tables, 1 Appendix, 28 References. HA.

A current controversy raging in the voting behavior literature concerns the "rational" character of the US electorate. The early U of Michigan studies depicted the typical voter as nonrational & inconsistent in his political attitudes, but recent research has cast him in a more favorable light. Data from the 1956 & 1964 U of Michigan Survey Research Center (SRC) election studies demonstrate that much of the change during this period can be traced to methodological artifacts, specifically changes in question wording & format introduced by the SRC in 1964. The effects of these artifacts have major implications for many current theories of electoral behavior. 4 Tables. HA.

Numerous studies in the past decade have suggested that voters in the US have become increasingly sophisticated, ideologically, & that this is due largely to the separate or combined impact of the growing educational attainments of the US public & the greater salience of politics in the late 1960s & 1970s. Here, it is hypothesized that much of the reported change in constraint--ie, the amount of relationship between issue items--may be due to a simple methodological artifact: changes in question wording & format. Using data from an experiment conducted as part of a national survey carried out by the National Opinion Research Center (three random subgroups of approximately 500 cases), the effect of wording & format differences on opinion structuring & amount of "don't know" or "no opinion" responses is examined. According to the findings, wording & format differences can account largely for much of the change observed during this period, & it is suggested that some generalizations about American voters may not be quite as "time-bound" as the current literature would lead one to believe. 2 Tables. AA.

It has often been suspected, but seldom researched, that respondents to surveys give opinions on topics to which they have given little or no thought. Telephone survey data from 631 respondents & interview data from 1,218 respondents are used to assess the magnitude of this problem. In the absence of an explicit filter question, about 33.34% of respondents had opinions about a fictitious Public Affairs Act, while filter questions reduced this to 5-10%. People with opinions on other issues are more likely to express opinions on this fictitious issue. Effects of education & race on response rate are identified; age, sex, & income do not have substantive effects. Low interpersonal trust is associated with high response rates & negative responses, while the reverse is true for high interpersonal trust. This pattern is reflected also in responses to real issues. 7 Tables. W. H. Stoddard.

Recent reports, particularly those of Norman Nie & his colleagues, have indicated that rather dramatic changes have occurred in the structure of mass belief systems of the United States public. Using data from a 1973 NORC survey of 1,500 respondents, the current research demonstrates that, in fact, very little change in the constraint of the political ideas of the typical voter has occurred since the supposedly nonideological 1950s. Most of the change reported is, instead, a result of methodological artifacts; specifically, changes in question-wording introduced with the Mich election series-the data source for most of these studies-in 1964. When the ideological consistency of the electorate is examined with identical questions over time, it is found to be rather constant from the 1950s through the 1970s. 2 Tables. AA.