Mass Informed Consent: Evidence on Upgrading Democracy with Polls and New Media by Adam F. Simon. Lanham, MD

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97146/1/j.1538-165X.2012.tb02262.x.pd

The District as an Ethnic Unit in East Pakistan

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/50813/1/28.pd

Question Wording as an Independent Variable in Survey Analysis

This paper renews the line of research into the effects of changes in survey question wording and form which occupied researchers during the 1940s. We suggest two reasons for the cessation of such research: the idiosyncratic nature of many of the items experimented with and the near exclusive focus on single-variable distributions. In the present study, the experiments are based on decisions that face all survey investigators: whether to use agree-disagree statements or forced choice items; whether to ask open or closed questions; whether and how to balance alternatives offered; whether to include a middle alternative; and whether or not to filterfor no opinion. Furthermore, we examine the consequences of these decisions not only for univariate distributions but also for an item's relationship to education. The results from SRC national probability samples suggest thatfor thefirst two types, as well as for items involving variations in tone of word, the decisions may affect inferences about correlations with education. For the other three types the effects are restricted mainly to changes in marginals, although the no-opinion type shows a more limited kind of interaction with education. Finally, we present evidence that index construction is not an adequate solution to the question-wording problem.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68832/2/10.1177_004912417700600202.pd

Autobiographical Misremembering: John Dean Is Not Alone

Survey respondents were asked to provide knowledge responses to public events and names that occurred as long ago as the 1930s and as recently as the 1980s. Respondents made errors that reflect the use of semantic and lexical memory systems, and reconstructive processes based on a semantic theme. Errors, as well as correct responses, are affected by whether the events originally occurred during the transition phase (early teens to mid-twenties). Responses indicate that events that occur during the transition phase are remembered better than events that occur during other life phases (in contradiction to the differential sampling hypothesis), but that events that occur during the transition phase can also promote error-prone reporting by interfering with other events or by promoting inaccurate reconstructions. The evidence suggests that the transition phase is not a monolithic entity, but that young adolescence differs from older transition phase ages by having a greater concentration on determining general properties of the world. Support is strongest for cognitive accounts of transition phase effects such as the first experience hypothesis, and results challenge physiological and evolutionary accounts that are tied to the transition phase promoting better memory. Finally, the more dramatic observed errors (such as inverting the subject and object of an event) point to possible undocumented instances of autobiographical misremembering

A note on changes in black racial attitudes in Detroit: 1968–1976

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43700/1/11205_2004_Article_BF00289437.pd

We and they: Pronouns as measures of political identification and estrangement

Some people refer to the United States government as "we," some people as "they," in responses to an open-ended survey question on American intervention in Vietnam. This seemingly trivial linguistic difference (and perhaps others) can be included as part of a regular coding operation. In the present instance, race seems to be the most important determinant of pronoun usage, with blacks more likely to refer to the United States as "they" rather than "we." The pattern of other associations to pronoun referent also differs by race: white they-sayers tend to be low in education and in personal trust of other people generally, while black they-sayers are not distinctive in education, but give evidence of solidarity with blacks and of alienation from whites. Not all the results fit together neatly, and limitations of the present measure are noted, but the findings suggest the value of content analysis of linguistic style in verbatim responses to survey questions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21996/1/0000408.pd