Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:39:46.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nonseparable Preferences, Measurement Error, and Unstable Survey Responses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Dean Lacy
Dean Lacy*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1373. e-mail: [email protected]://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/dlacy/index.htm
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A person has nonseparable preferences when her preference on an issue depends on the outcome of other issues. A model of survey responses in which preferences are measured with error implies that responses will change depending on the order of questions and vary over time when respondents have nonseparable preferences. Results from two survey experiments confirm that changes in survey responses due to question order are explained by nonseparable preferences but not by the respondent's level of political information, partisanship, or ideology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 2001 , pp. 95 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher. 1975. “Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response.” American Political Science Review 69: 1218–1231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Achen, Christopher. 1983. “Toward Theories of Data: The State of Political Methodology.” In Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Finifter, Ada. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, pp. 69–94.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and Discontent, ed. Apter, David. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Carpini, Delli, Michael, X., and Keeter, Scott. 1997. What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Enelow, James M., and Hinich, Melvin J. 1984. The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Erickson, Robert. 1979. “The SRC Panel Data and Mass Political Attitudes.” British Journal of Political Science 9: 89–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Stanley. 1989. “Measuring Issue Preferences: The Problem of Response Instability.” Political Analysis 1: 25–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, Charles. 1989. “Estimation across Data Sets: Two-Stage Auxiliary Instrumental Variables Estimation (2SAIV).” Political Analysis 1: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, King, Gary, and Liu, Chuanhai. 1998. “Not Asked and Not Answered: Multiple Imputation for Multiple Surveys.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 93(443): 846–57.Google Scholar
Hinich, Melvin J., and Munger, Michael C. 1997. Analytical Politics New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyman, Herbert H., and Sheatsley, Paul B. 1950. “The Current Status of American Public Opinion.” In The Teaching of Contemporary Affairs, ed. Payne, J. C. Twenty-First Yearbook of the National Council of Social Studies, pp. 11–34.Google Scholar
Judd, Charles, and Milburn, Michael. 1980. “The Structure of Attitude Systems in the General Public: Comparisons of a Structural Equation Model.” American Sociological Review 45: 627–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. 1966. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936–60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gray, Honacker, James, Joseph, Anne, and Scheve, Kenneth. 2001. “Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation.” American Political Science Review. Forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A. 1992. “The Impact of Cognitive Sophistication and Attitude Importance on Response-Order and Question-Order Effects.” In Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research, eds. Schwartz, Norbert and Sudman, Seymour. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 203–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnisk, Jon A., and Berent, Matthew K. 1992. “Comparisons of Party Identification and Policy Preferences: The Impact of Survey Question Format.” American Journal of Political Science 37: 941–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A., and Schuman, Howard. 1988. “Attitude Intensity, Importance, and Certainty and Susceptibility to Response Effects.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54: 940–952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacy, Dean. 1994. Nonseparable Preferences in Politics: Implications for Social Choice, Elections, and Public Opinion, Ph.D. dissertation. Durham, NC: Duke University.Google Scholar
Lacy, Dean. 2001. “A Theory of Nonseparable Preferences in Survey Responses.” American Journal of Political Science 45(2): 239–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Milton, McGraw, Kathleen M., and Stroh, Patrick J. 1989. “An Impression-Driven Model of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science Review 83: 399–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luce, R. D., and Suppes, P. 1965. “Preference, Utility, and Subjective Probability.” In Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, Vol. 3, eds. Luce, R. D., Bush, R., and Galanter, E. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1992. The Rational Public. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, Samuel. 1991. The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuman, Howard, and Ludwig, Jacob. 1983. “The Norm of Even-Handedness in Surveys as in Life.” American Sociological Review 48 (Feb.): 112–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuman, Howard, and Presser, Stanley. 1981. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Strack, Fritz. 1992. “Order Effects in Survey Research: Activation and Information Functions of Preceding Questions.” In Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research, eds. Schwartz, Norbert and Sudman, Seymour. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Tourangeau, Roger. 1992. “Context Effects on Responses to Attitude Questions: Attitudes as Memory Structures.” In Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research, eds. Schwartz, Norbert and Sudman, Seymour. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Tourangeau, Roger, and Rasinski, Kenneth. 1988. “Cognitive Processes Underlying Context Effects in Attitude Measurement.” Psychological Bulletin 103: 299–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tourangeau, Roger, Rasinski, Kenneth, Bradburn, Norman, and D’Andrade, Roy. 1989a. “Carryover Effects in Attitude Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 53: 495–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tourangeau, Roger, Rasinski, Kenneth, Bradburn, Norman, and D’Andrade, Roy. 1989b. “Belief Accessibility and Context Effects in Attitude Measurement.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 25: 401–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211: 453–458.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John, and Feldman, Stanley. 1992. “A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions Versus Revealing Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 36(3): 579–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar