Response Latencies and Attitude‐Behavior Consistency in a Direct Democratic Setting: Evidence from a Subnational Referendum in Germany

This article addresses the role of response latencies in affecting the attitude‐behavior consistency in a German subnational referendum. As voters faced a comparatively easy choice in this referendum, it puts the hypothesis concerning the role of attitude accessibility in increasing attitude‐behavior consistency to a particularly hard test. Utilizing data from a two‐wave panel survey, the analysis examines the effect of response latencies on the attitude‐behavior consistency concerning participation and vote choice. The evidence confirms hypotheses derived from attitude‐consistency theory only in a limited number of cases. The institutional setting and the nature of choice thus appear to make a difference. Moreover, substantive findings depend partially upon the procedure to measure response latencies. Accordingly, sensitivity tests should be employed by default. Irrespective of operationalization, response latencies play a crucial role when it comes to respondents who answered that they would “perhaps” participate. Whereas a quickly uttered “perhaps” was indicative of a rather low likelihood of participation, a slowly given “perhaps” indicated a considerably high probability.     

Two-Timing: Politics and Response Latencies in a Bilingual Survey

Through the recording of response times in a national four-wave bilingual panel survey, this study reports improvements in the prediction of vote choice up to 1 year in advance of a federal election. These results were achieved with conventional computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) software, indicating that the immediate use of response time measures isboth practical and attractive for commercial as well as academic survey units. Even so, response latencies were found to be sensitive to political circumstance, such that timings should be analyzed separately for minority and majority populations. Moreover, a broad analytic focus, beyond timing only vote intention and partisan commitment, is recommended because latency data on core questions of identity and allegiance reveal a great deal about the contours ofpolitical context.     

Political Consequences of Inconsistency: The Accessibility and Stability of Abortion Attitudes

This paper investigates the political consequences of inconsistency for the accessibilityand self-assessed stability of attitudes toward abortion. Two different sources of inconsistencyare examined: cognitive inconsistency between abortion attitudes and ideological identifications,and social inconsistency between individual abortion attitudes and the attitudes of others withinthese individuals' networks of association. The data analyzed are drawn from theresponses of 2,174 registered voters in a 1996 election survey that used computer-assistedtelephone interviewing (which enabled measurement of response latencies). The analysis focusedon the relationships among the accessibility, self-assessed stability, and extremity of abortionattitudes; the consequences of cognitive inconsistency for the accessibility and self-assessedstability of abortion attitudes; and the consequences of socially inconsistent abortion attitudes forthe accessibility and stability of abortion attitudes.     

On the Relationship Between Attitude Involvement and Attitude Accessibility: Toward a Cognitive-Motivational Model of Political Information Processing

A model of the relationship between attitude involvement and attitude accessibilitywas developed and tested. The model specifies that attitude involvement leads to selective(biased) issue-related information-gathering strategies, which in turn produce extreme andunivalent (unambivalent) attitudes. Finally, attitudes associated with univalent and extremeunderlying structures should occasion relatively little decision conflict and thus should be highlyaccessible. Questionnaire response data gathered in a national telephone survey and from twosamples of undergraduates revealed that both attitude extremity and attitude ambivalence onselected political issues mediated the relationship between attitude involvement and attitudeaccessibility. Some findings indicated that selective processing mediated the relationshipbetween attitude involvement and attitude extremity and ambivalence. Discussion focuses on theprocesses linking involvement to accessibility, the factors that moderate theambivalence-accessibility relationship, and the relevance of the model to media-based primingeffects and tothe nature of public opinion and the survey response.     

Retrospective versus prospective explanations of changes in political opinion

Retrospective and prospective causal attributions of one's political opinion changes were compared in light of the distinction between external and internal attributions. Semistructured interviews focusing on three political issues were held with 47 psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to explain (a) why they changed opinion in the past, and (b) what would make them abandon their current positions in the future. Two judges estimated independently the importance the subjects attached to four categories of external attributions (firsthand and secondhand information, neutral and persuasive information sources) and two categories of internal attributions (cognitive elaboration and personality characteristics). As a group, subjects explained their past opinion changes by referring to several attribution categories whereas in their explanations of hypothetical future opinion changes they above all referred to (secondhand information on) crucial events. It is concluded that people feel something drastic would need to occur before they would be ready to abandon a political stance.     

Do Strength‐Related Attitude Properties Determine Susceptibility to Response Effects? New Evidence From Response Latency,Attitude Extremity,and Aggregate Indices

A great deal of research has shown that small changes in question wording, format, orordering can sometimes substantially alter people's reports of their attitudes. Althoughmany scholars have presumed that these so-called response effects are likely to be morepronounced when the attitudes being measured are weak, a number of studies have disconfirmedthis notion. This paper presents several new tests of this hypothesis using a variety of measuresand analytic techniques. The findings largely replicated previously documented effects andnon-effects but also uncovered new effects not previously tested. No single strength-relatedattitude attribute emerged as a consistent moderator of all response effects. Rather, differentindividual attributes moderated different effects, and a conglomeration of strength-relateddimensions did not emerge as a reliable moderator. Taken together, these results support theconclusions that different response effects occur as the result of different cognitive processes,and that various strength-related attitude attributes reflect distinct latent constructs rather than asingle one.     

Public Support for Political Compromise on a Volatile Racial Issue: Insight from the Survey Experiment

In 2000, South Carolina officials, after years of political wrangling over the flying of the Confederate flag over the state capitol, finally removed it, placing it at a Confederate monument on the statehouse grounds. Here, via iterative survey experimentation, I look at the public response to the political compromise required to bring down the flag. I show that the public did respond positively to the multifaceted compromise and that black flag opponents were much more likely than white flag proponents to support the compromise. I also show that more white flag proponents can be swayed to support the compromise if they understand that it is supported by a majority of South Carolinians, thus breaking their misperception of the issue. Flag proponents, however, do not respond more positively to compromise simply because it is the by‐product of white and black negotiations. The political process necessarily evokes competitive intergroup attitudes. Can we think about process in a way that redirects these attitudes and makes political compromise more acceptable?     

品牌态度强度与品牌态度可达性的关系性质

运用态度量表和反应时实验比较了品牌态度强度与品牌态度可达性的关系性质。研究发现,女性被试对保健品品牌要素的态度评价越肯定,态度通达和提取的时间就越快,两者之间形成有规律的函数关系;但在否定性态度条件下,没有出现类似的规律性;当要求被试把模糊性态度明确为肯定或否定态度时,67％的被试明确为否定态度,但所用时间显著慢于明确为肯定态度所用的时间     

History Matters: Effects of Culture‐specific Symbols on Political Attitudes and Intergroup Relations

A theory of the historical anchoring and mobilization of political attitudes is proposed, arguing that culture‐specific symbols, configured by historical charters, are an important resource in defining nationhood and legitimizing public opinion in a way that makes some political attitudes difficult to change. Five studies in New Zealand and Taiwan using diverse methods converged to show that historical events with “charter status” have an additive effect in explaining variance in political attitudes regarding biculturalism in New Zealand and independence in Taiwan even after controlling for the effects of Social Dominance Orientation, Right‐Wing Authoritarianism, relevant social identities, and collective guilt. Field and lab experiments showed that the impact of historical symbols did not depend on the mobilization of social identity (e.g., increasing mean scores and indirect effects), but the historical anchoring of political attitudes in representations was resistant to change. Manipulations of the salience of historical events changed levels of social identification, but did not change mean levels of support for New Zealand biculturalism or Taiwanese independence. Even an intense and immersive pretest/posttest design taking high school students on a national museum tour failed to change attitudes towards biculturalism in New Zealand.     

态度研究的新进展——双重态度模型

态度一直是社会心理学领域一个极为重要的研究课题,一直以来研究只关注有意识状态下人们的外显态度,对于无意识状态下的内隐态度最近才引起人们的意识。双重态度模型理论认为,人们对同一态度客体可能同时拥有两种不同的态度－－外显态度和内隐态度,这一理论对传统的态度概念及测量技术都提出了新的挑战。该对双重态度模型的理论来源、基本观点、双重态度类型及相关的研究证据作了详细介绍,最后探讨了双重态度模型理论对态度改变、态度测量及态度与行为一致性等未来研究方向的意义与启示。     

身体意象的知觉测评和态度测评

身体意象的测评工作有利于研究者在不同研究领域针对具体问题采用适当的测量身体意象功能的方法。目前研究者主要从知觉和态度两个成分对身体意象概念进行建构,并据此对身体意象测评方法做出分类。在知觉测评方法中主要介绍了身体形态大小估计测量法,而态度测评方法分为外显和内隐的测量方法,内隐测量法中特别介绍了人格化内隐联想测验的进展。此外,在同时测量身体意象的知觉和态度两个成分的工具中回顾了人物刺激问卷法,以及国外最近开发的数码图像和计算机技术。避免身体意象测评工具的误用和提高此类工具在人群中的适用性是今后研究应注意的方法学问题。     

The question-behaviour effect: A theoretical and methodological review and meta-analysis

Research has demonstrated that asking people questions about a behaviour can lead to behaviour change. Despite many, varied studies in different domains, it is only recently that this phenomenon has been studied under the umbrella term of the question-behaviour effect (QBE) and moderators of the effect have been investigated. With a particular focus on our own contributions, this article: (1) provides an overview of QBE research; (2) reviews and offers new evidence concerning three theoretical accounts of the QBE (behavioural simulation and processing fluency; attitude accessibility; cognitive dissonance); (3) reports a new meta-analysis of QBE studies (k = 66, reporting 94 tests) focusing on methodological moderators. The findings of this meta-analysis support a small significant effect of the QBE (g = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.11, 0.18, p < .001) with smaller effect sizes observed in more carefully controlled studies that exhibit less risk of bias and (4) also considers directions for future research on the QBE, especially studies that use designs with low risk of bias and consider desirable and undesirable behaviour separately.     

Sorting Out Support for Democracy: A Q‐Method Study

Support for democracy is crucial to democratic stability. Yet the nature and range of democratic belief systems, and whether these belief systems are idiosyncratic to specific individuals and polities or are more general, remain largely unknown. Such unknowns complicate an already daunting measurement task. Extant survey‐based measures are fraught with validity problems and say little about the democratic beliefs individuals most strongly hold or reject. To address these problems, this study blends focus groups, interviews, and Q‐sort methodology to examine patterns of subjective, behavioral renderings of democratic support profiles. It finds seven shared profiles of beliefs concerning democracy, alternative regimes, and political and civil freedoms across Chile and Argentina. Their resemblance to democratic belief systems found with other methods bolsters their validity and generalizability. The analyses reveal the relative weight of each orientation within each belief profile and their intensity across profiles. In so doing, they identify which items are crucial for within‐ and across‐case comparisons. Altogether, these insights should inform survey‐based approaches to detecting and describing the democratic support profiles latent in the polity.     

Sexual Attitudes and Instructional Set Affect Estimates of Risk and Response Effectiveness

Two hundred and eleven undergraduate men and women were assigned to different instructional set conditions and asked to rate (1) the sexual risk depicted in a set of written items describing problem situations undergraduate women might face when dating or interacting socially with men, and (2) the effectiveness of responses to these situations, described by a set of response codes. Results revealed that sexual attitudes and instructional set were the strongest predictors of both ratings. Gender did, however, predict risk ratings for stranger and authority figure situations, with women rating these situations as more risky than men. In addition, women assigned to the risk instructional set condition rated refusal responses as more effective in decreasing risk than did men in the same condition. In contrast, women assigned to the popularity instructional set condition rated the same refusal responses as less effective in increasing popularity than did men in that condition.

Demographic Question Placement: Effect on Item Response Rates and Means of a Veterans Health Administration Survey

Purpose

This study examined whether demographic question placement affects demographic and non-demographic question completion rates, non-demographic item means, and blank questionnaire rates using a web-based survey of Veterans Health Administration employees.

Methodology

Data were taken from the 2010 Voice of the Veterans Administration Survey (VoVA), a voluntary, confidential, web-based survey offered to all VA employees. Participants were given two versions of the questionnaires. One version had demographic questions placed at the beginning and the other version had demographic questions placed at the end of the questionnaire.

Findings

Results indicated that placing demographic questions at the beginning of a questionnaire increased item response rate for demographic items without affecting the item response rate for non-demographic items or the average of item mean scores.

Implications

In addition to validity issues, a goal for surveyors is to maximize response rates and to minimize the number of missing responses. It is therefore important to determine which questionnaire characteristics affect these values. Results of this study suggest demographic placement is an important factor.

Originality/Value

There are various opinions about the most advantageous location of demographic questions in questionnaires; however, the issue has rarely been examined empirically. This study uses an experimental design and a large sample size to examine the effects of demographic placement on survey response characteristics.     

Understanding the Determinants of Political Ideology: Implications of Structural Complexity

There has been a substantial increase in research on the determinants and consequences of political ideology among political scientists and social psychologists. In psychology, researchers have examined the effects of personality and motivational factors on ideological orientations as well as differences in moral reasoning and brain functioning between liberals and conservatives. In political science, studies have investigated possible genetic influences on ideology as well as the role of personality factors. Virtually all of this research begins with the assumption that it is possible to understand the determinants and consequences of ideology via a unidimensional conceptualization. We argue that a unidimensional model of ideology provides an incomplete basis for the study of political ideology. We show that two dimensions—economic and social ideology—are the minimum needed to account for domestic policy preferences. More importantly, we demonstrate that the determinants of these two ideological dimensions are vastly different across a wide range of variables. Focusing on a single ideological dimension obscures these differences and, in some cases, makes it difficult to observe important determinants of ideology. We also show that this multidimensionality leads to a significant amount of heterogeneity in the structure of ideology that must be modeled to fully understand the structure and determinants of political attitudes.     

The Association of Religiosity and Political Conservatism: The Role of Political Engagement

Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and being politically conservative. We evaluate an alternative thesis that the relation between religiosity and political conservatism largely results from engagement with political discourse that indicates that these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a wide range of attitudes and values among the highly politically engaged, but this association was generally weaker or nonexistent among those less engaged with politics. The specific political characteristics for which this pattern existed varied across ethno‐religious groups. These results suggest that whether religiosity translates into political conservatism depends to an important degree on level of engagement with political discourse.     

Fight and Flight: Evidence of Aggressive Capitulation in the Face of Fear Messages from Terrorists

In an era of digital technology and the Internet, terrorists can communicate their threats directly to citizens of Western countries. Yet no research has examined whether these messages change individuals' attitudes and behavior or the psychological processes underlying these effects. Two studies (conducted in 2008 and 2010) examined how American, Australian, and British participants responded to messages from Osama bin Laden that threatened violence if troops were not withdrawn from Afghanistan. Heightened fear in response to the message resulted in what we call “aggressive capitulation,” characterized by two different group‐protection responses: (1) submission to terrorist demands in the face of threats made against one's country and (2) support for increased efforts to combat the source of the threat but expressed in abstract terms that do not leave one's country vulnerable. Fear predicted influence over and above other variables relevant to persuasion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Protestant Clergy and the Culture Wars: An Empirical Test of Hunter's Thesis

Examinations of culture wars typically assess the attitudes of the American public. This study instead focuses on culture wars among religious elites—clergy—and tests three aspects of the culture wars thesis: (1) whether religious elites are engaged in culture wars, (2) whether clergy attitudes are polarized on these issues, and (3) whether religious authority or religious affiliation is more salient in creating culture wars cleavages. Using data from a large random sample of Protestant clergy, we find a substantial amount of engagement in culture wars by all types of Protestant clergy. The amount of polarization is more attributable to views of religious authority (i.e., biblical inerrancy) than to religious tradition. Moreover, polarization among clergy is somewhat more evident on culture wars issues than on other social and political issues. These findings are generally supportive of the culture wars thesis and should help return examinations of culture wars back to where they were originally theorized to be waged: among elites.