Population-Based Survey Experiments Research Articles

Media, trust, and the influence of urban/rural context and education on public sector worker stereotypes

ABSTRACT Public employees often face pervasive negative stereotypes. Despite a growing body of research, the factors contributing to such stereotypes remain underexplored. We present a pre-registered study with two population-based survey experiments using video vignettes—on teachers and police officers. Both investigate the impact of mediatized events, trust, and personal characteristics on stereotyping (n = 3,502). Our results show that news reports affect stereotyping of both professions. High and low trust are linked to positive and negative stereotyping, respectively. Lastly, urban/rural setting and education yield mixed effects. Our findings offer theoretical and practical implications for understanding factors shaping public employee stereotyping.

The Public Legitimacy of Multistakeholder Partnerships in Global Environmental Governance: Evidence from Survey Experiments in Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract Multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) in global environmental governance are either praised for their problem-solving capacities and inclusion of various societal actors or criticized for their limited accountability and corporate dominance. Despite the lively scholarly debate and the continued promotion of MSPs by international organizations and governments, knowledge about how environmental MSPs are perceived by the public is very limited. Understanding the sources of public support for MSPs is important, given its crucial role in MSPs’ abilities to secure resources and achieve their goals. In this article, we evaluate whether and how institutional features of MSPs influence citizens’ legitimacy beliefs. Building on previous studies, we theorize which institutional dimensions of MSPs matter for citizens’ level of support. We conduct population-based survey experiments in Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, encompassing more than 6,000 respondents. The results from the survey experiments have substantive implications for our understanding of the role of MSPs.

How do Voters Form Perceptions of Party Positions?

AbstractPolitical debates are structured by underlying conflict dimensions, such as left-right and economic and cultural ideology, which form the basis for voter choice and party competition. However, we know little about how voters arrive at perceptions of parties' positions on these dimensions. We examine how the emphasis parties place on the different issues that make up a higher-level ideological dimension affects perceptions of their position on that dimension. Using two population-based survey experiments, we present respondents with either short or long statements that communicate the same issue stances. We then test whether the length of statements affects positional perceptions on the higher-level dimension. The empirical results show support for our hypotheses and imply that political parties – and the context in which they compete – can affect their perceived position even if underlying issue stances remain stable.

Testing public reaction to constitutional fiscal rules violations

Politicians are less likely to breach constitutional fiscal rules than statutory rules because the breach of constitutional rules arguably puts them in a more negative spotlight and hampers their re-election prospects. This is one of the main arguments for explaining why constitutional fiscal rules tend to be more effective in correcting for political deficit bias vis-à-vis statutory rules. In this paper I isolate the reaction of the public to the potential breach of constitutional fiscal rules from the reaction of other players, such as the opposition, media and civil society organizations. Poland was chosen as a case study because it provides a highly realistic context where the numerical fiscal rule, the 60% of GDP debt limit, is enshrined in both constitutional and statutory laws. To test for the public reaction to constitutional fiscal rules violations, this study gathered data from three well-powered population-based survey experiments. In the first experiment (N = 1,106), a negative, albeit negligible, effect of constitutional breach (as compared to statutory law breach) on the policy approval was identified. The second (N = 1,587) and the third experiment (N = 1,082) displayed null results, i.e., no evidence was found that the public perceived the breach of constitutional fiscal rule as more negative than the violation of the statutory fiscal rule. It therefore seems that, on average, the public tends to care to the same extent about the violations of constitutional and statutory fiscal rules. It is of note that the experiments were conducted in highly unusual circumstances, i.e., in the context the COVID-19 crisis, presidential elections and war. Further and more extended research on these aspects should thus follow.

Partisan Bias of Perceived Incivility and its Political Consequences: Evidence from Survey Experiments in Hong Kong

Abstract Exposure to presumably uncivil content is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for perceptions of incivility and thus could lead to differential political consequences. To examine the emergence and consequences of perceived incivility in disagreement comments, the present study reports on two population-based online survey experiments in Hong Kong (N1 = 1,207, N2 = 611). The results indicate that individuals perceive a higher degree of incivility in disagreement comments directed to in-group members than in those directed to out-group members, regardless of content features. This bias perception is greater when respondents can easily identify the incivility in a comment. Furthermore, exposure to disagreement comments can only influence willingness to participate and affective polarization indirectly via perceived incivility, and such effects are conditional on whether respondents can easily identify the incivility in a comment.

Expressive Politics as (Costly) Norm Following

When deciding whether to support a political candidate, policy or cause, individuals are observed to prioritize the expression of their political identities. They even knowingly incur personal costs (a lower wage, strained family relations) to do so. We argue that viewing political identities as social identities that impart norms on who or what one ought to support can help explain such costly political expression. Through population-based survey experiments, we show that individuals are aware of the norms attached to their political identities; will knowingly choose norm-compliance at personal cost; and that this costly political identity expression varies with norm salience and strength. Our results imply that as political identities strengthen, group norm compliance will increase, even at a cost, rendering compromise between political groups less likely.

Communicating Evidence about the Causes of Obesity and Support for Obesity Policies: Two Population-Based Survey Experiments.

Public support for numerous obesity policies is low, which is one barrier to their implementation. One reason for this low support is the tendency to ascribe obesity to failings of willpower as opposed to the environment. Correlational evidence supports this position. However, the experimental evidence is mixed. In two experimental studies, participants were randomised to receive no message, messages about the environment’s influence on obesity (Study 1 & 2), or messages about the environment’s influence on human behaviour (Study 1). We investigated whether communicating these messages changed support for obesity policies and beliefs about the causes of obesity. Participants were recruited from nationally representative samples in Great Britain (Study 1 & 2) and the USA (Study 2) (total n = 4391). Study 2 was designed to replicate existing research. Neither study found evidence that communicating the messages increased support for obesity policies or strengthened beliefs about the environment’s role in obesity. Study 2, therefore, did not replicate two earlier experimental studies. Instead, the studies reported here suggest that people’s beliefs about the causes of obesity are resistant to change in response to evidence and are, therefore, not a promising avenue to increase support for obesity policies.

Do Voters Respond to Relative Economic Performance?

Abstract An emerging literature suggests that economic voting is driven by incumbents’ relative performance, that is, how the national economy performed relative to recent past outcomes in the country (domestic comparison) and in a cross-national perspective (international comparison). While scholars have presented macro-level evidence in this direction, to date there has been scant micro-level evidence as to whether voters’ evaluations of incumbent competence are shaped by relative performance. This article contributes to the literature by presenting two population-based survey experiments fielded in the United Kingdom and in Istanbul, Turkey. Both British and Turkish voters’ evaluations of incumbent competence are affected by information about how well the economy performed in domestic and international comparisons, though Turkish voters seem to react to international performance comparison to a lesser degree than to a domestic one. In both countries highly educated individuals are more responsive to the incumbent’s relative international performance. These results provide support for macro-level analyses that highlight the importance of incumbents’ relative performance for economic voting.

What have I done to deserve this? The role of deservingness in effects of ordinary citizens as cases in the news

Previous studies have shown that cases in news reporting have substantial attitudinal effects on the audience. The direction of results has been mixed, however. Some studies reported that news audience change opinion in favour of the position of the case, while other studies reported the opposite. In this article, we emphasize the deservingness of cases as a potential factor explaining the differences in previous results. In two population-based survey experiments, we empirically investigate how exposure to cases in the news affects the audience’s opinion about the political issue covered. Drawing on insights from welfare state studies, we argue that the deservingness of cases drives the effect of cases on public opinion. Our results confirm this assumption. In a concluding section, we discuss the implications of our results.

Developing Standards for Post-Hoc Weighting in Population-Based Survey Experiments

AbstractWeighting techniques are employed to generalize results from survey experiments to populations of theoretical and substantive interest. Although weighting is often viewed as a second-order methodological issue, these adjustment methods invoke untestable assumptions about the nature of sample selection and potential heterogeneity in the treatment effect. Therefore, although weighting is a useful technique in estimating population quantities, it can introduce bias and also be used as a researcher degree of freedom. We review survey experiments published in three major journals from 2000–2015 and find that there are no standard operating procedures for weighting survey experiments. We argue that all survey experiments should report the sample average treatment effect (SATE). Researchers seeking to generalize to a broader population can weight to estimate the population average treatment effect (PATE), but should discuss the construction and application of weights in a detailed and transparent manner given the possibility that weighting can introduce bias.

IS SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE ACTION CONDITIONAL ON PERCEPTIONS OF RECIPROCITY? EVIDENCE FROM SURVEY EXPERIMENTS IN CANADA, THE US, NORWAY, AND SWEDEN

The challenges of collective action are presented by leaders in many industrialized countries as a major obstacle to effective action on climate change. Notably, the argument goes, a fair international solution must appropriately constrain large greenhouse gas emitters like China. This paper asks whether citizen support for multilateral climate policies also depends on whether other countries are seen to reciprocate. We analyze results from population-based survey experiments in the US, Canada, Norway, and Sweden, asking subjects whether they think their country should commit internationally to emission reductions. Randomly assigned sub-samples were presented with statements suggesting that China may or may not choose to cooperate, or alternatively making no mention of China. We find that reciprocity is important to respondents in the smaller Scandinavian countries but not in North America. These findings suggest that country size is more important than national traditions of multilateral cooperation in predicting support for unilateral climate action.

Population-Based Survey Experiments

Population-Based Survey Experiments

Mutz, Diana C. Population-Based Survey Experiments.

PVS Politische Vierteljahresschrift , Seite 553 - 555