What 'Don't Know' Causes Us to Not Know About Accuracy in Political Perceptions in Network Data

Abstract

The role of political perceptions of social network members, and to a lesser extent the implications of those perceptions being inaccurate, is an important focus of research in political communication. One matter that is sometimes overlooked is whether or not a perception is truly inaccurate or rather if the survey respondent merely lacks a meaningful perception altogether. That is, is the respondent wrong, or do they simply “don’t know” – or does this distinction not matter? Using full social network data from 25 small groups, this paper explicitly examines the effect of different treatments of “don’t know” responses when examining accuracy in political perceptions of alters. It also examines the individual and group-level factors that lead to such don’t know responses.