Suchergebnisse

Since the Vietnam War, public preferences on foreign policy issues have played a greater role in the US political process. Yet comparatively little is known about the manner in which attitudes on international affairs are formed & how they are related to political cognitions. Data from 2 studies of foreign policy opinion conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1974 & 1978 are used to examine the question of how mass & elite opinion differs in a number of policy domains & determine whether these distinctions changed over the 4 years. The 1974 study consisted of personal interviews with a random national sample of 1,513 mass Rs & 328 elites; in 1978, 1,546 individuals from the general public & 366 elites were interviewed. Comparisons of % differences on identical questions between groups & between years are employed in analyzing these data. In general, there are patterns of difference in the foreign policy beliefs of the elites & the mass public, the most striking being in their "internationalist" view of the US role in world affairs, with smaller distinctions in the domains of Americanism, human rights, detente, world problems, & international organizations. 9 Tables. AA.

Previous studies have shown that a substantial number of people will offer opinions on fictitious topics in the context of a survey interview. The results of a split-ballot experiment (& a replication) with three fictitious public affairs issues suggest that people give opinions on such matters in large part because of the pressure to answer survey questions that is created by the way in which the questions are asked & by the manner in which "don't know" responses are handled by the interviewer. Findings of the telephone interview surveys (N not given) also indicate that there may be little or no relationship between an individual's willingness to admit ignorance & his or her inclination to volunteer opinions on fictitious issues, as measured by at least one item from the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. In addition, the data demonstrate that blacks & less well-educated Rs are more likely than their counterparts to offer opinions on fictitious issues. 1 Appendix, 9 References. AA

Two experiments are described in which a failure to replicate the findings of Howard Schuman, Stanley Prosser, & Jacob Ludwig (see SA 30:2/82M1253) is itself replicated. In the first, 3 different forms of a survey instrument containing 2 questions about abortion were administered by telephone to residents of the greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area (total N not given) as part of a larger survey; the order in which the questions were asked made no significant difference. Possible context effects from other questions were explored through questions included in a larger survey of the same area, in which each of 1,043 Rs received 1 of 4 forms of the same instrument. Difference in context of the abortion questions does not explain the absence of order effects. Implications of the findings are explored. 2 Tables, 4 References. Modified HA.

Previous experiments have shown that reported interest in politics varies according to the order & content in which questions are asked. The degree to which this problem can be reduced by appropriate test design is explored. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,511 households in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area with 3 different spacings of questions; subsequently, similar interviews were completed with 1,517 households in the same area following a similar design. It was found that the use of buffering questions does not reduce the impact of difficult questions on the question of how informed a R feels about politics. It also appears that first asking how informed a R feels about politics may increase the likelihood of claims to have definite knowledge on specific questions asked subsequently. Item separation is found to have no effect in reducing these problems. 3 Tables, 11 References. W. H. Stoddard.

A telephone survey was conducted after the fall 1982 elections to find out whether the order of questions affects Rs' responses to questions about how interested they are in the political campaign. Two sets of Rs (N = 574 & 576, respectively) were asked the same 2 questions (whether they voted & how interested they were in following the political campaign), but in different order. When asked how interested they were in following the political campaigns immediately after a question about whether or not they voted in the 1982 election, Rs were more likely to think they were interested in the campaign, especially if they claimed to have voted, than if they were asked about it immediately before the question on whether or not they had voted. The order effect appears, however, to depend on when the questions are asked. If asked within a few weeks of the election, there is little or no order effect. But as the memory of the campaign fades, the order of the questions makes a sizable difference in the results. Better educated Rs show a more pronounced order effect. In conclusion, a brief discussion is presented of the implications for the design of the interview schedule used in the American National Election Studies. 3 Tables, 9 References. Modified HA.