Suchergebnisse

Political attitudes have been hypothesized to vary along a continuum from highly symbolic to nonsymbolic, with symbolic attitudes showing more stability across the life span. Here, reviewed are 3 investigations that decomposed test-retest correlations between attitude reports into components due to attitude change & measurement unreliability. Data from National Election Panel Studies conducted 1956-1980 reveal that symbolic attitudes, eg, political party affiliation, were more consistent over time because they contained less random measurement error, not because they were more persistent. The differences in measurement precision across attitude object categories appear to be due to differences in the format of the survey questions used to measure them. It is concluded that the persistence & potency of political attitudes vary more across citizens than across attitude object categories. Thus, conventional wisdom about the viability of some central assertions of democratic theory may need to be revised. 3 Tables, 122 References. Adapted from the source document.

On 7 Mar 1987, The New York Times reported the results of a Harris poll indicating that large proportions of the US public strongly "favor," "support," & "would allow" a series of proposed changes in the civil justice system that would reduce the amount of damages typically awarded. However, the actual questions asked in the poll assessed the degree to which respondents would find each proposed change "acceptable." Here, an experiment involving telephone interviews with 60 Columbus, Ohio, residents, shows that fewer people say they would support each change than say they favor it or find it acceptable. It is concluded that reports of the Harris poll results almost certainly overstated public support for these proposed changes in the civil justice system. 1 Table, 4 References. Modified AA

Abstract
Survey researchers today can choose between relatively higher-cost probability sample telephone surveys and lower-cost surveys of nonprobability samples of potential respondents who complete questionnaires via the internet. Previous studies generally indicated that the former yield more accurate distributions of variables, but little work to date has explored the impact of mode and sampling on associations between variables and trends over time. The current study did so using parallel surveys conducted in 2010 focused on opinions, events, behavioral intentions, and behaviors involving that year's Decennial Census. A few comparisons indicated that the two data streams yielded similar results, but the two methods frequently yielded different results, often strikingly so, and the results yielded by the probability samples seem likely to be the more accurate ones.