Abstract In the context of the current "replication crisis" across the sciences, failures to reproduce a finding are often viewed as discrediting it. This paper shows how such a conclusion can be incorrect. In 1981, Schuman and Presser showed that including the word "freedom" in a survey question significantly increased approval of allowing a speech against religion in the USA. New experiments in probability sample surveys (n = 23,370) in the USA and 10 other countries showed that the wording effect replicated in the USA and appeared in four other countries (Canada, Germany, Taiwan, and the Netherlands) but not in the remaining countries. The effect appeared only in countries in which the value of freedom is especially salient and endorsed. Thus, public support for a proposition was enhanced by portraying it as embodying a salient principle of a nation's culture. Instead of questioning initial findings, inconsistent results across countries signal limits on generalizability and identify an important moderator.
Publisher's version (útgefin grein) ; Questionnaire design is routinely guided by classic experiments on question form, wording, and context conducted decades ago. This article explores whether two question order effects (one due to the norm of evenhandedness and the other due to subtraction or perceptual contrast) appear in surveys of probability samples in the United States and 11 other countries (Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom; N = 25,640). Advancing theory of question order effects, we propose necessary conditions for each effect to occur, and found that the effects occurred in the nations where these necessary conditions were met. Surprisingly, the abortion question order effect even appeared in some countries in which the necessary condition was not met, suggesting that the question order effect there (and perhaps elsewhere) was not due to subtraction or perceptual contrast. The question order effects were not moderated by education. The strength of the effect due to the norm of evenhandedness was correlated with various cultural characteristics of the nations. Strong support was observed for the form-resistant correlation hypothesis. ; This article uses data from the German Internet Panel waves 8 (doi:10.4232/1.12614) and 9 (doi:10.4232/1.12615). A study description can be found in . The German Internet Panel is the central data collection (project Z1) of Collaborative Research Center 884 "Political Economy of Reforms" (SFB 884) at the University of Mannheim and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Panel data were collected by CentERdata (Tilburg University, the Netherlands) through its Measurement and Experimentation in the Social Sciences (MESS) project funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (grant number 176.010.2005.017). This article uses data from the GESIS Panel (doi:10.4232/1.12658). The development of the GESIS Panel was funded the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and is now a permanent data collection facility operated by GESIS. The SSRI Online Panel data were collected by the Social Science Research Institute, University of Iceland. The panel is funded by the institute. The Understanding Society Innovation Panel is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and various Government Departments, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by NatCen Social Research and Kantar Public. The research data are distributed by the UK Data Service: Understanding Society: Innovation Panel, Waves 1–8, 2008–2015 [data collection]. 7th Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 6849. The data in Sweden were collected by the Laboratory of Opinion Research at the University of Gothenburg through its Swedish Citizen Panel. This data collection is described in Martinsson et al. (2014). The Danish data are funded by The Danish Council for Independent Research. The Norwegian Citizen Panel/DIGSSCORE is funded by the University of Bergen, Uni Research, and the Bergen Research Foundation (grant no. 01234). The data of Taiwan were collected under the funding of Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica. The Japan survey was funded by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (1-1406) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. The data collection for Portugal has benefited from funding of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), grant number PTDC/IVC-CPO/3921/2012. TESS (Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences) is funded by the National Science Foundation (SES-1628057). ; Peer Reviewed
Several copy number variants have been associated with neuropsychiatric disorders and these variants have been shown to also influence cognitive abilities in carriers unaffected by psychiatric disorders. Previously, we associated the 15q11.2(BP1–BP2) deletion with specific learning disabilities and a larger corpus callosum. Here we investigate, in a much larger sample, the effect of the 15q11.2(BP1–BP2) deletion on cognitive, structural and functional correlates of dyslexia and dyscalculia. We report that the deletion confers greatest risk of the combined phenotype of dyslexia and dyscalculia. We also show that the deletion associates with a smaller left fusiform gyrus. Moreover, tailored functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments using phonological lexical decision and multiplication verification tasks demonstrate altered activation in the left fusiform and the left angular gyri in carriers. Thus, by using convergent evidence from neuropsychological testing, and structural and functional neuroimaging, we show that the 15q11.2(BP1–BP2) deletion affects cognitive, structural and functional correlates of both dyslexia and dyscalculia. ; The research leading to these results has received support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreements' no. 115008 (NEWMEDS) and no. 115300 (EUAIMS) of which resources are composed of EFPIA in-kind contribution and financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (EU-FP7/2007-2013), EU-FP7 funded grant no. 602450 (IMAGEMEND) and EU funded FP7-People-2011-IAPP grant agreement no. 286213 (PsychDPC). Approval for this study was obtained from the National Bioethics Committee of Iceland and the Icelandic Data Protection Authority. ; Peer Reviewed
