Public Opinion Quarterly Research Articles

A Mass Poisoning Rumor in Europe]: Comment

Journal Article COMMENT Get access FREDRICK KOENIG FREDRICK KOENIG Tulane University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 56, Issue 2, SUMMER 1992, Page 254, https://doi.org/10.1086/269317 Published: 01 January 1992

A Review: Exit Polls in the 1989 Virginia Gubernatorial Race: Where Did They Go Wrong?

Journal Article THE POLLS—A REVIEW: EXIT POLLS IN THE 1989 VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL RACE: WHERE DID THEY GO WRONG? Get access MICHAEL W. TRAUGOTT, MICHAEL W. TRAUGOTT MICHAEL W. TRAUOOTT is a program director in the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and professor of communication at the University of Michigan. VINCENT PRICE is a faculty associate in the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and assistant professor of communication at the University of Michigan. This review was drawn from a paper presented at the annual conference of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, November 22-24, 1991, in Chicago. The analysis was supported in part by the Program in Media and Politics in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. The research assistance of Margaret Petrella is gratefully acknowledged. Access to the printed source materials in the archive of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research was generously provided by Erik Austin. This review has benefited from the editorial advice of Stanley Presser. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar VINCENT PRICE VINCENT PRICE MICHAEL W. TRAUOOTT is a program director in the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and professor of communication at the University of Michigan. VINCENT PRICE is a faculty associate in the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and assistant professor of communication at the University of Michigan. This review was drawn from a paper presented at the annual conference of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, November 22-24, 1991, in Chicago. The analysis was supported in part by the Program in Media and Politics in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. The research assistance of Margaret Petrella is gratefully acknowledged. Access to the printed source materials in the archive of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research was generously provided by Erik Austin. This review has benefited from the editorial advice of Stanley Presser. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 56, Issue 2, SUMMER 1992, Pages 245–253, https://doi.org/10.1086/269316 Published: 01 January 1992

Little White Lies and Social Science Models: Correlated Response Errors in a Panel Study of Voting

Little White Lies and Social Science Models: Correlated Response Errors in a Panel Study of Voting

The obsession to forecast: Pre-election polls in the Israeli press: Gabriel Weimann, Public opinion Quarterly, 54 (1990) 396–408.

The obsession to forecast: Pre-election polls in the Israeli press: Gabriel Weimann, Public opinion Quarterly, 54 (1990) 396–408.

Stability and Change in the U.S. Public's Knowledge of Politics

The U.S. public's current knowledge about politics is compared with levels of knowlege in the 1940s and 1950s. Fourteen questions asked by Gallup on various surveys from 1945 to 1957 were included on a larger survey of political knowledge conducted by telephone in 1989 with a randomly selected sample of 610 adult U.S. residents. On 8 of the 14 items, the percentage answering correctly in 1989 was higher than in the earlier surveys (by 4-15 points). One item showed an increase of 1 percent, two were down 1 percent, and three others declined by 5 percent, 9 percent, and 10 percent. When level of education is controlled, however, levels of knowledge appear to have declined for most of the items. A reanalysis of some of the original Gallup data is used to estimate the effectiveness of schools in transmitting political information in 1989 compared with the earlier years. An informed citizenry is an implicit requisite for any theory of democracy. However, public opinion surveys of the 1940s and 1950s consistently demonstrated the average citizen's limited knowledge concerning public affairs and the basic workings of parties, politics, and government (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; Converse 1962, 1964; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944). In 1962 and 1963 Erskine published four articles in Public Opinion Quarterly cataloging how informed the American citizenry was on a host of political and public concerns (Erskine 1962, 1963a, 1963b, MICHAEL X. DELLI CARPINI is assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. SCOTT KEETER is associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University. This research was supported by grants from Virginia Commonwealth University and Barnard College and by the Virginia Commonwealth University Survey Research Laboratory. Some of the data were made available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Neither ICPSR nor the Roper Center is responsible for the analyses and interpretations presented here. We wish to thank Stephen Earl Bennett and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 55 583-612 C 1991 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research All rights reserved 0033-362X/91/5504-0002$02.50 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.25 on Mon, 12 Sep 2016 04:27:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 584 Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter 1963c). The articles brought together national survey questions asked from 1947 through 1962. Since the late 1950s the number and range of political knowledge questions asked on national surveys have declined precipitously. Using a national telephone survey, we have replicated several of the items reported by Erskine to document what, if any, changes have occurred in the U.S. public's political knowledge. First we summarize extant research on political knowledge, pointing out its conclusions as well as the shortcomings that result from a relative lack of current data. Next we discuss the design and validity of our survey and examine the willingness of respondents to complete a survey devoted mainly to a test of political knowledge. We then turn to the Gallup polls used in our comparisons, explaining adjustments that are necessary due to sampling bias. We follow with a comparison of marginals for 14 knowledge questions. Finally, we explore the changes in political knowledge (and lack thereof) in light of societal changes in educational achievement.

The Electorate's Partisan Evaluations: Evidence of a Continuing Democratic Edge

Scholars have devoted a good deal of attention to studying changes in how the public evaluates the Democratic and Republican parties. However, there have been few attempts to examine the underlying components of the changes in these overall evaluations of the parties in detail. By recoding the Center for Political Studies' open-ended likes/dislikes questions for parties, this paper maps change in the underlying partisan evaluations of the electorate since 1952. The results suggest that the Democrats have remained the favored party, despite some gains by the GOP in recent years. Of the eight issues studied, the Republicans have made significant inroads only on the economic front. The findings also highlight the obstacles that face the Republican's effort to gain majority status, suggesting why it has remained the minority party for over 50 years, and why it is likely to remain in that position in the near future. With the defeat of Michael Dukakis in 1988, the Democrats have lost five of the last six presidential elections, winning ten or fewer states in four of those contests. The Democrats have also lost a sizable share of self-identified partisans in recent years. In 1980, for instance, the Democrats held a twenty percentage point lead over the Republicans. By 1988, that lead had shrunk to about six percentage points. In addition, there are indications of a pro-Republican tide among the youth of the nation, suggesting that further gains by the GOP may be on the horizon. Work by Cavanagh and Sundquist (1985), Norpoth (1987), Norpoth and Kagay (1989), Petrocik (1987), Shanks and Miller (1989), and Wattenberg (1987 and 1990) all lend support to the claim that the fortunes of the Democratic party have been waning. JOHN G. GEER teaches at Arizona State University. The author thanks Thad Brown, Pat Crittenden, Kim Kahn, Pat Kenney, Bob Luskin, Warren Miller, Jim Stimson, and Tom Rochon for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. A much earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1988 WPSA meetings in San Francisco. Data used in this paper were made available by the ICPSR. The author bears sole responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented here. Public Opinion Quarterly 55:218-231 C) 1991 by the Amencan Association for Public Opinion Research Published by The University of Chicago Press / 0033-362X/91/0055-02/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.103 on Mon, 25 Apr 2016 06:42:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Electorate's Partisan Evaluations 219 While the GOP has made gains in the 1980s, this trend need not continue. The fortunes of the parties have had peaks and valleys over the last 50 years. In 1964, for instance, the GOP appeared to be retreating on nearly all fronts. Yet by 1968, the GOP had won the White House and had also made sizable inroads into the Democrat's edge in self-identified partisans. Such shifts suggest that we should be cautious when interpreting the recent changes in the public's attitudes toward the parties. Caution may be particularly appropriate in this case, given that the Democrats retain a plurality of self-identified partisans, control both houses of Congress, and hold a majority of governorships and legislatures in the fifty states. To detect the depth of the GOP's gains and thereby develop a better sense of the relative standing of the two parties, I examine changes in the public's evaluations of Democratic and Republican parties since 1952. This examination does not include the public's assessment of presidential contenders. By setting aside attitudes toward the two nominees, one avoids contaminating the estimates of partisan support in the electorate. It is possible, for instance, that the gains by the GOP in recent years are tied, in part, to Reagan's personal popularity rather than any enduring change in how the public evaluates the two parties. Thus, by limiting attention to just the public's evaluation of the parties, one can better estimate the underlying support for the parties in the

Rating Scales: Numeric Values May Change the Meaning of Scale Labels

Three experiments indicate that the numeric values provided as part of a rating scale may influence respondents' interpretation of the endpoint labels. In experiment 1, a representative sample of German adults rated their success in life along an 11-point rating scale, with the endpoints labeled at all successful and extremely successful. When the numeric values ranged from 0 (not at all successful) to 10 (extremely successful), 34 percent of the respondents endorsed values between 0 and 5. However, only 13 percent endorsed formally equivalent values between 5 and 0, when the scale ranged from -5 (not at all successful) to +5 (extremely successful). Experiment 2 provided an extended conceptual replication of this finding, and experiment demonstrates that recipients of a respondent's report draw different inferences from formally equivalent but numerically different values. In combination, the findings indicate that respondents use the numeric values to disambiguate the meaning of scale labels, resulting in different interpretations and, accordingly, different subjective scale anchors. NORBERT SCHWARZ iS program director at ZUMA and Privatdozent of psychology at the University of Heidelberg. BARBEL KNAUPER is research associate at ZUMA. HANS-J. HIPPLER iS project director at ZUMA. ELISABETH NOELLE-NEUMANN is founder and director of the Institute fur Demoskopie Allensbach, and professor emeritus of mass communication at the University of Mainz. LESLIE CLARK iS assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. The reported research was supported by grant SWFOO44-6 from the Bundesminister fur Forschung und Technologie of the Federal Republic of Germany to Norbert Schwarz. We thank George Bishop, Tory Higgins, and Tracy Wellens for stimulating discussions. Correspondence should be addressed to Norbert Schwarz, ZUMA, P.O. Box 12 21 55, D-6800 Mannheim, Germany. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 55 570-582 ? 1991 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research All rights reserved 0033-362X/91/5504-0008$02.50 This content downloaded from 40.77.167.53 on Fri, 09 Sep 2016 04:16:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Changes in the Meaning of Scale Labels 571 Rating scales with labeled endpoints are probably the most widely used measurement instrument in social and psychological research. Leaving some concerns about their psychometric properties aside (see Nunnally 1978), the use of these scales does not seem to be very controversial (see Dawes and Smith [1985] for a careful discussion of their general properties and for empirical and psychological justifications for their use). In general, 7-point scales seem to be best in terms of reliability, percentage of undecided respondents, and respondents' ability to discriminate between the scale values (e.g., Cox 1980). Thus, seven plus or minus two is the usual recommendation. Moreover, respondents are able to use rating scales consistently, even in telephone interviews without visual aids (e.g., Hormuth and Bruckner 1985). In addition, verbal rating scales, which provide a label for each scale point, have been found to be more reliable than scales that provide labels for the endpoints only (Krosnick and Berent 1990). Finally, researchers have observed that the terms used to label the endpoints, or to designate the separate values of verbal rating scales, may affect the obtained distribution (e.g., Rohrmann 1978; Wegner, Faulbaum, and Maag 1982; Wildt and Mazis 1978). This suggests that respondents pay close attention to the meaning of the labels provided to them, much as one would hope. Whereas the number of scale points, the inclusion or omission of a neutral point, and the choice of scale labels have received considerable attention in the literature (see Dawes and Smith 1985), the specific numeric values provided have, to our knowledge, not been the topic of theoretical analysis and empirical investigation. Apparently, researchers assume that, for example, a 7-point scale that ranges from 1 to 7 is equivalent to a 7-point scale that ranges from 3 to + 3, as long as the same endpoint labels are provided. In the present article, we will question this assumption. Drawing on survey data from the Allensbach archive, we will first demonstrate that the specific numeric values provided in a rating scale can have a dramatic impact on the obtained results. We will then discuss different underlying processes and will test their viability in laboratory experiments. Experiments 1 and 2: The Impact of Numeric Values

An Algorithm for Estimating Turnout as a Guide to Predicting Elections

Journal Article AN ALGORITHM FOR ESTIMATING TURNOUT AS A GUIDE TO PREDICTING ELECTIONS Get access JOHN R. PETROCIK JOHN R. PETROCIK University of CaliforniaLos Angeles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 55, Issue 4, WINTER 1991, Pages 643–647, https://doi.org/10.1086/269286 Published: 01 January 1991

Private Materialism, Personal Self-Fulfillment, Family Life, and Public Interest: The Nature, Effects, and Causes of Recent Changes in the Values of American Youth

Private Materialism, Personal Self-Fulfillment, Family Life, and Public Interest: The Nature, Effects, and Causes of Recent Changes in the Values of American Youth

White Reaction to Black Candidates: When Does Race Matter?]: Reply

Journal Article REPLY Get access JACK CITRIN, JACK CITRIN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar DONALD GREEN, DONALD GREEN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar DAVID SEARS DAVID SEARS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 55, Issue 1, SPRING 1991, Page 150, https://doi.org/10.1086/269248 Published: 01 January 1991

In Memoriam: Robert T. Bower, 1919-1990

Journal Article Robert T. Bower, 1991–1990 Get access W. PHILLIPS DAVISON W. PHILLIPS DAVISON Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 55, Issue 1, SPRING 1991, Pages 128–130, https://doi.org/10.1086/269244 Published: 01 January 1991

AAPOR AWARD

Journal Article AAPOR AWARD Get access Herbert E. Krugman Herbert E. Krugman Secretary-Treasurer Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 54, Issue 3, FALL 1990, Page 450, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/54.3.450 Published: 01 January 1990

Pessimism, Psychology, and Politics

Brody, R., & Sigelman, L. (1983). Presidential popularity and presidential elections: An update and an extension. Public Opinion Quarterly, 47, 325-328. Chance, M. R. A. (1976). The organization of attention in groups. In M. von Cranach (Ed.), Methods of inferencefrom animal to human behavior. The Hague: Mouton. de Waal, F. (1982). Chimpanzee politics. London: Cape. Erikson, R. S. (1989). Economic conditions and the presidential vote. American Political Science Review, 83, 567-573. Hibbs, D. A., Jr. (1987). The American political economy: Macroeconomics and electoral politics in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hinde, R. (1982). Ethology. Glasgow: Collins. Lanzetta, J. T., Sullivan, D. G., Masters, R. D., & McHugo, G. J. (1985). Emotional and cognitive responses to televised images of political leaders. In S. Kraus & R. E. Perloff (Eds.), Mass media and political thought (pp. 85-116). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Lewis-Beck, M., & Eulau, H. (Eds.). (1985). Economic conditions and electoral outcomes. New York: Agathon. Marcus, G. (1988). The structure of emotional appraisal: 1984 candidates. American Political Science Review, 82, 737-762. Markus, G. B. (1988). The impact of personal and national economic conditions on the presidential vote: A pooled cross-section analysis. American Journal of Political Science, 32, 137-154. Masters, R. D. (1989a). Gender and political cognition: Integrating evolutionary biology and political science. Politics and the Life Sciences, 8, 3-39. Masters, R. D. (1989b). The nature of politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Masters, R. D. (1989c). Nice guys DON'T finish last: Aggressive and appeasement gestures in media images of politics. In M. R. A. Chance (Ed.), Social fabrics of the mind (pp. 277-96). Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Masters, R. D., & Sullivan, D. (1989). Nonverbal displays and political leadership in France and the United States. Political Behavior, 11, 121-153. Masters, R. D., Sullivan, D. G., Lanzetta, J. T., McHugo, G. J., & Englis, B. G. (1986). The facial displays of leaders: Toward an ethology of human politics. Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 9, 319343. McGuire, M. T., & Raleigh, M. (1986). Behavioral and physiological correlates of ostracism. In M. Gruter & R. Masters (Eds.), Ostracism: A social and biological phenomenon (pp. 39-52). New York: Elsevier. Mishkin, M., & Appenzeller, T. (1987). The anatomy of memory. Scientific American, 256, 38-89. Strayer, F. (1981). The organization and coordination of asymmetrical relations among young children: A biological view of social power. In M. Watts (Ed.), Biopolitics: Ethological and physiological approaches (pp. 33-50). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sullivan, D., & Masters, R. D. (1988a, July). Emotional and cognitive reactions to watching political leaders: Experimental evidence in France and the United States. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society for Political Psychology, San Francisco. Sullivan, D., & Masters, R. D. (1988b). Happy warriors: Leaders' facial displays and viewers' emotions, and political support. American Journal of Political Science, 32, 345-368.

The Berelson Paradox Reconsidered Intention-Behavior Changers in U.S. and Swedish Election Campaigns

The Berelson Paradox Reconsidered Intention-Behavior Changers in U.S. and Swedish Election Campaigns

Book Note

BOOK NOTE Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 54, Issue 3, FALL 1990, Page 447, https://doi.org/10.1086/269222 Published: 01 January 1990

Effects of Interview Mode on Self-Reported Drug Use

The effects of interview mode on 18to 34-year-olds' self-reported tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine use were investigated. RDD telephone and personal drug use surveys of the state of New Jersey were conducted in 1986-87. In the personal interview, respondents recorded their drug use on selfadministered answer sheets. Compared to the area probability sample in the personal interview, RDD yielded a sample of blacks higher in income and education, and more likely to be married and currently employed; white SES was also higher in the telephone sample, but to a lesser degree than for blacks. Controlling for demographic characteristics and RDD's exclusion of nontelephone households, the telephone survey yielded significantly lower estimates of blacks' alcohol consumption, and lifetime and recent marijuana use. Whites' alcohol consumption was slightly lower by telephone; otherwise, estimates of whites' use of the four substances were nearly identical in the two modes. Sample coverage, respondent demographic characteristics, and racial matching of interviewer and respondent did not account for the significant mode differences. Characteristics of the interview situation itself, such as provision of privacy in the self-administered format, may have influenced tendencies toward socially desirable responding to a threatening topic such as drug use. Telephone interviewing has increased in popularity relative to personal interviewing due to cost savings, efficiency, and the availability of comWILLIAM S. AQUILINO iS a Research Scientist with the Center for Demography and Ecology, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. LEONARD A. LO SCIUTO is Director, Institute for Survey Research, Temple University. The study was supported by grant No. RO1-DA04280 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, Maryland, and by PHS National Research Service Award #AG00129-03 from the National Institute on Aging. Surveys were conducted by the Institute for Survey Research at Temple University. The personal interview data were collected by the New Jersey Household Survey on Drug Abuse, funded by the Department of Public Health, State of New Jersey. The authors wish to thank Linda Thompson for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 54:362-395 ? 1990 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research Published by The University of Chicago Press / 0033-362X/90/0054-03/$2 50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.248 on Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:21:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Interview Mode Effects in Drug Use Surveys 363 puter-assisted methods to speed data collection and processing (Groves, 1983; Klecka and Tuchfarber, 1978). Compared to face-to-face interviewing, telephone surveys are cheaper, have shorter data collection periods, and lend themselves to closer monitoring of interviewer performance, thus enhancing quality control during data collection. The utility of the telephone survey has been demonstrated in marketing, political polling, health, and numerous forms of attitudinal research. Herzog and Rodgers (1988), for example, found almost no differences in response distributions obtained from telephone and personal interviews in a survey of older Americans' political attitudes, health, well-being, and life satisfaction. Telephone approaches have been shown to produce reliable and valid results for relatively nonthreatening interview topics. Much less is known, however, about the efficacy of telephone surveys for highly threatening interview topics, such as sexual behavior, criminality, and the use of illicit drugs. Surveys on these topics have relied almost exclusively on costly and timeconsuming face-to-face interviewing. This research addressed the question: To what extent does the validity of sensitive surveys differ by mode of interview? Specifically, is there a difference between faceto-face surveys using self-administered questionnaires (SAQs) and telephone surveys in their estimates of lifetime and current use of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine? Our research questions centered on comparing telephone and personal survey modes in terms of nonresponse, demographic characteristics of the respondents, and validity of drug use estimates: (1) what differences in sample demographic characteristics are produced by multistage area probability sampling versus Random Digit Dial (RDD) methods; and (2) do personal surveys using SAQs and telephone surveys provide different estimates of drug use for the same population? If so, to what extent are mode differences attributable to sample coverage, nonresponse bias, or to the interview situation itself?

Cumulative Index to Volumes 47-54, 1983-1990

CUMULATIVE INDEX TO VOLUMES 47-54, 1983-1990 Get access Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 54, Issue 4, WINTER 1990, Pages 641–675, https://doi.org/10.1086/269237 Published: 01 January 1990

A Mass Poisoning Rumor in Europe]: Reply

REPLY Get access JEAN-NOËL. KAPFERER JEAN-NOËL. KAPFERER FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY AND INFORMATION ON RUMORS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 54, Issue 3, FALL 1990, Page 437, https://doi.org/10.1086/269217 Published: 01 January 1990

Proceedings of the Forty-Fifth Annual Conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the World Association for Public Opinion Research

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH AND THE WORLD ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH Get access MICHAEL KAGAY MICHAEL KAGAY Conference Chair Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 54, Issue 3, FALL 1990, Pages 448–449, https://doi.org/10.1086/269223 Published: 01 January 1990

Issue Involvement and Response Effects in Public Opinion Surveys

This research tests the widespread assumption that response effects due to variations in question form, wording, or context will be greatest among respondents who are least involved with an issue. A meta-analysis of results from 15 splitballot experiments conducted over a five-year period indicates that the response effects of using counterarguments or middle alternatives in survey questions are significantly larger, as would be expected, among respondents who are less involved with a given issue than among those who are highly involved with it. But the effects of question order and response order appear to be largely unrelated to how involved a respondent is with a particular issue. Issue involvement, then, appears to specify some response effects, but not others. Public opinion researchers have long assumed that the respondents who are most susceptible to being influenced by the way in which a question is worded, the form in which it is presented, or the order or context in which it is asked are those who are least involved with an issue and whose views on the subject are therefore not well crystallized or held with much conviction (see, e.g., Cantril, 1944; Converse, 1974; Payne, 1951). But a recent investigation by Krosnick and Schuman (1988), based on nearly thirty experiments conducted over a ten-year period in various national surveys, indicates that this widespread assumption about who it is that is most susceptible to response effects may very well be wrong (cf. Stember and Hyman, 1949-50; Sudman and Bradburn, 1974; Sudman and Swensen, 1985, cited in Krosnick and Schuman, for previous evidence on the hypothesis). With the notable exception of the effects of offering or omitting a middle response GEORGE F. BISHOP iS Professor of Political Science and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. The research reported here was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (SOC78-07407 and SES81-11404). The author would like to thank Jon Krosnick for his consultation on the meta-analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 54:209-218 ? 1990 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research Published by The University of Chicago Press / 0033-362X/90/0054-02/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Mon, 29 Aug 2016 05:16:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 210 George F. Bishop alternative in survey questions, they found no significant relationship between such indicators of as attitude importance, intensity, and certainty and an individual's susceptibility to different types of response effects. After considering alternative explanations for these counterintuitive findings, such as the possible unreliability, invalidity, or crudity of their attitude crystallization measures-all of which they find insufficient as rival hypotheses-Krosnick and Schuman have concluded that differences in attitude crystallization do not generally explain why some individuals are susceptible to response effects while others are not, and that each type of response effect is probably determined by a unique psychological moderating variable. An independent investigation by the author has produced a similar set of results from split-ballot experiments with different topics, conducted in telephone surveys over a five-year period in a major metropolitan area of the United States. Though the results presented here extend and replicate most of those reported by Krosnick and Schuman, there is evidence that issue involvement may specify some types of response effects, but not others.