Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:44:09.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Don’t Know” Responses, Personality, and the Measurement of Political Knowledge*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2015

Stephen A. Jessee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A prominent worry in the measurement of political knowledge is that respondents who say they don’t know the answer to a survey question may have partial knowledge about the topic—more than respondents who answer incorrectly but less than those who answer correctly. It has also been asserted that differentials in respondents’ willingness to guess, driven strongly by personality, can bias traditional knowledge measures. Using a multinomial probit item response model, I show that, contrary to previous claims that “don’t know” responses to political knowledge questions conceal a good deal of “hidden knowledge,” these responses are actually reflective of less knowledge, not only than correct responses but also than incorrect answers. Furthermore, arguments that the meaning of “don’t know” responses varies strongly by respondent personality type are incorrect. In fact, these results hold for high- and low-trait respondents on each of the five most commonly used core personality measures.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 711 - 731
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

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.)

Footnotes

*

Stephen A. Jessee, Associate Professor, Department of Government, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1800 Austin, TX 78712 ([email protected]). The author thanks John Bullock for extensive input and assistance throughout the course of this project and Rob McCulloch for sharing his code and providing extremely helpful advice. This project also benefited greatly from the input of Doug Rivers, Adam Bonica, James Scott, Scott Moser, Tse-min Lin, Chris Wlezian, Seth Hill, Alex Tahk, Christopher Fariss, and participants at the UCSD Methods Workshop and the University of Texas American Politics Workshop. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.23

References

Anderson, Carolyn J., Verkuilen, Jay, and Peyton, Buddy L.. 2010. ‘Modeling Polytomous Item Responses Using Simultaneously Estimated Multinomial Logistic Regression Models’. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 35(4):422–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Rivers, Douglas. 2013. ‘Cooperative Survey Research’. Annual Review of Political Science 16:307–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bafumi, Joeseph, and Shapiro, Ian. 2009. ‘A New Partisan Voter’. Journal of Politics 71(1):1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, Darrell R. 1972. ‘Estimating Item Parameters and Latent Ability When Responses are Scored in Two or More Nominal Categories’. Psychometrika 37(1):29–51.Google Scholar
Boudreau, Cheryl, and Lupia, Arthur. 2011. ‘Political Knowledge’. In James N. Druckman, Donald P. Green, James H. Kuklinski, and Arthur Lupia (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, pp. 171--86. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, Joshua, Jackman, Simon, and Rivers, Douglas. 2004. ‘The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data: A Unified Approach’. American Political Science Review 98:355–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Keeter, Scott. 1993. ‘Measuring Political Knowledge: Putting First Things First’. American Journal of Political Science 37(4):1179–1206.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Keeter, Scott. 1996. What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Funder, David C. 2001. ‘Personality’. Annual Review of Psychology 52:197–221.Google Scholar
Furnham, Adrian, and Medhurst, Sarah. 1995. ‘Personality Correlates of Academic Seminar Behaviour: A Study of Four Instruments’. Personality and Individual Differences 19(2):197–208. Available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V9F-3YB56P1-2H/2/80c0fee51b8e315e81617475020cd3f8.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., Huber, Gregory A., and Washington, Ebonya. 2010. ‘Party Affiliation, Partisanship and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment’. American Political Science Review 104(4):720–745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 2009. ‘Knowing the Supreme Court? A Reconsideration of Public Ignorance of the High Court’. Journal of Politics 71(2):429–441.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Lewis R. 1990. ‘An Alternative “Description of Personality”: The Big-Five Factor Structure’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59(6):1216–1229.Google Scholar
Gosling, Samuel D., Rentfrow, Peter J., and Swann, William B. Jr. 2003. ‘A Very Brief Measure of the Big-Five Personality Domains’. Journal of Research in Personality 37(6):504–528.Google Scholar
Groseclose, Tim, and Milyo, Jefferey. 2005. ‘A Measure of Media Bias’. Quarterly Journal of Economics CXX(4):1191–1237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckman, James J., and Snyder, James M.. 1997. ‘Linear Probability Models of the Demand for Attributes with an Empirical Application to Estimating the Preferences of Legislators’. RAND Journal of Economics 28:142–189.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto. 1986. ‘Whither Political Information?’ American National Election Studies: Pilot Study Report No. 002253. http://www.electionstudies.org/resources/papers/documents/nes002253.pdf Google Scholar
Jackman, Simon. 2000. ‘Estimation and Inference are Missing Data Problems: Unifying Social Science Statistics via Bayesian Simulation’. Political Analysis 8:307–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackman, Simon. 2009. pscl: Political Science Computational Laboratory (R library).Google Scholar
Jessee, Stephen A. 2009. ‘Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election’. American Political Science Review 103(1):59–81.Google Scholar
Jessee, Stephen A.. 2010. ‘Partisan Bias, Political Information and Spatial Voting in the 2008 Presidential Election’. Journal of Politics 72(2):327–340.Google Scholar
Keane, Micheal P. 1992. ‘A Note on Identification in the Multinomial Probit Model’. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 10(2):193–200.Google Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A., Lupia, Arthur, DeBell, Matthew, and Donakowski, Darrell. 2008. ‘Problems with ANES Questions Measuring Political Knowledge’. ANES Report. Available at http: //electionstudies.org/announce/newsltr/20080324PoliticalKnowledgeMemo.pdf, accessed 8 May 2010.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Christopher N. 2009. ‘Should Voters Be Encyclopedias? Measuring Political Knowledge in the United States and the Netherlands’. Manuscript. Texas A&M International University. Available at http://www.cnlawrence.com/papers/irt-soph.pdf, accessed 27 December 2009.Google Scholar
Lovallo, William R., and Pishkin, Vladimir. 1980. ‘Type A Behavior, Self-Involvement, Autonomic Activity, and the Traits of Neuroticism and Extraversion’. Psychosomatic Medicine 42(3):329–334.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur. 2006. ‘Elitism and the Study of Democratic Competence’. Critical Review 18(1–3):1–74.Google Scholar
Luskin, Robert. 2002. ‘From Denial to Extenuation (and Finally Beyond): Political Sophistication and Citizen Performance’. In James H. Kuklinski (ed.), Thinking About Political Psychology, pp. 217--52. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Luskin, Robert, and Bullock, John. 2011. ‘“Don’t Know” Means “Don’t Know”: DK Responses and the Public’s Level of Political Knowledge’. Journal of Politics 73(2):547–557.Google Scholar
Martin, Andrew D., and Quinn, Kevin M.. 2002. ‘Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the US Supreme Court, 1953–1999’. Political Analysis 10(2):134–153.Google Scholar
Mondak, Jeffrey J. 1999. ‘Reconsidering the Measurement of Political Knowledge’. Political Analysis 8(1):57–82.Google Scholar
Mondak, Jeffrey J. 2010. Personality and the Foundations of Political Behavior. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mondak, Jeffery J., and Halperin, Karen D.. 2008. ‘A Framework for the Study of Personality and Political Behaviour’. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology 38(2):335–362.Google Scholar
Nadeau, Richard, and Niemi, Richard G.. 1995. ‘Educated Guesses: The Process of Answering Factual Knowledge Questions in Surveys’. Public Opinion Quarterly 59(3):323–346.Google Scholar
Noel, Hans. 2007. ‘Multinomial Ideal Point Estimation: When the Decision to Speak is as Important as What You Say’. Poster, Annual Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology, July 18--21, 2007, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Ozer, Daniel J., and Reise, Steven P.. 1994. ‘Personality Assessment’. Annual Review of Psychology 45:357–388.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1985. ‘A Spatial Model for Legislative Roll Call Analysis’. American Journal of Political Science 29(2):357–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, Markus, and Lupia, Arthur. 2008. ‘Money, Time, and Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Quick Recall and Political Learning Skills’. American Journal of Political Science 52(1):169–183.Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2013. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available at http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Rasch, Georg. 1960a. Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests. Copenhagen: Danmarks Paedogogische Institut.Google Scholar
Rasch, Georg. 1960b. Probabilistic Model for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests. Copenhagen: Danmarks Paedogogische Institut.Google Scholar
Rossi, Peter. 2012. bayesm: Bayesian Infer ence for Marketing/Micro-Econometrics (R library). Google Scholar
Rossi, Peter E., Allenby, Greg M., and McCulloch, Robert. 2005. Bayesian Statistics and Marketing. New York: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnakenberg, Keith E., and Fariss, Christopher J.. 2014. ‘Dynamic Patterns of Human Rights Practices’. Political Science Research and Methods 2(1):1–31.Google Scholar
Shor, Boris. 2009. ‘All Together Now: Putting Congress, State Legislatures, and Individuals in a Common Ideological Space’. Working Paper, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Sturgis, Patrick, Allum, Nick, and Smith, Patten. 2008. ‘An Experiment on the Measurement of Political Knowledge in Surveys’. Public Opinion Quarterly 85(1):90–102.Google Scholar
Swann, William B. Jr., and Rentfrow, Peter J.. 2001. ‘Blirtatiousness: Cognitive, Behavioral, and Physiological Consequences of Rapid Responding’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(6):1160–1175.Google Scholar
Treier, Sean, and Jackman, Simon. 2008. ‘Democracy as a Latent Variable’. American Journal of Political Science 52(1):201–217.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Jessee dataset

Datasets

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/29707
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Jessee supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Jessee supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 116.5 KB
Supplementary material: File

Jessee supplementary material

Jessee supplementary material 1

Download Jessee supplementary material(File)
File 116.5 KB