Article:
Public Opinion and Democratic Politics:
The Problems of Nonattitudes and the Social Construction of Political Judgment
by Sniderman, Tetlock and Elms

Question:

The authors fear that if the if theories of Nonattitude and Social Construction are true then Political Leaders may need to reevaluate how the incorporate public opinion into there policy making

Definitions:

Variations of Social Construction

Flip Flop Model:

When asked a political opinion, most people have partial agreement and can defend both sides to an issue. Zaller say it is Situational Cues and Question-Wording that trigger which side of the issues they choose to speak to.

Situation Clues:

Salient considerations that affect the opinion, recent experiences, news stories, interview situation.

Question-Wording Variations:

The theory that how a question is worded or the order of questions will trigger different responses

Ambivalence Deduction:

Zaller argues that some people are ideologically torn over an issue therefor ambivalent as to which opinion they share.

Curvilinear-Ambivalence Hypothesis:

This says that people who are not strong conservative/liberals are more likely to have partial agreement with both sides of an issue and therefor susceptible to being influenced by Situational Clues and Question Wording variations

The Problem Cause Experiment:

The authors set up an experiment Testing for Question-Word variants

Question:

Do police have probable cause to stop and search students passing a drug house if they are described as…

1)Well dressed and well behaving

2)Using foul language

Conclusion:

Discredited past explanations of inconsistencies, Zaller and Convers, implied that there wasn't that much of a problem

BACK