Do Political Attitudes Exist?

Receive-Accept-Sample Model

By Zhou Yuyang and She Man-Hsuan

From public attitude to ‘simple theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences’

Part 1

As we all know, opinion research need to get public attitude or

opinion from public though survey or poll.

Virtually all public opinion research proceeds on the assumption that

citizens possess reasonably well formed attitudes on major political

issues and that surveys are passive measures of these attitudes. The

standard view is that when survey respondents say they favor X they

are simply describing a preexisting state of feeling favorably toward

X.

Public Attitude

However, in the really world, when people are asked the same

question in a series of interviews, their attitude reports are highly

changeable. Many, as much evidence also shows, react strongly to

the context in which questions are asked, to the order in which

options are presented, and to wholly nonsubstantive changes in

question wording.

It shows on two aspects: response instability and response effects.

First, let’s see an instance.

Source: National Election Studies, 1980 Panel Survey

The data in Table 1, based on interviews of the same

persons six months apart, illustrate the problem. As can be

seen from the entries on the main diagonals, only 45% to

55% gave the same answer both times, even though about

30% could have done so by chance alone.

So, according to kind of phenomenon, in some thesis

( Converse ), they take any instability as evidence of a

"nonattitude," was an extreme claim intended to

characterize attitudes only on highly abstract issues.

Response instability

However, can we make sure that political attitude does not

exist? Or there are some other elements lead to the response

instability. Just like Zaller argue in the thesis ‘A Simple Theory

of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing

Preferences’

Here, Zaller argue that the fluctuations that appear in people's

overt survey responses are attributed to "measurement error,"

where such error is said to stem from the inherent difficulty of

mapping one's attitudes onto the unavoidably vague language

of survey questions.

Further, not just random response variance (Response

instability ) exists, there also exists systematic variance

from artifactual “response effects”.

For example, in a split-half sample, 37% of respondents

were willing to allow communist reporters in the United

States. Yet when, in the other half-sample, respondents

were first asked whether U.S. reporters should be allowed

in Russia (which most favored), the percentage agreeing to

allow Russian reporters here doubled to 73%.

Response Effects

Thus, the literature on response effects makes it clear that survey

questions do not simply measure public opinion.

Public opinion researchers largely ignore both the longstanding

problem of massive over-time response instability and the newer

findings on questionnaire effect.

In the case of response effects, the patch-up consists of trying to

prevent the problem from becoming conspicuous; in the case of

response instability, the patch-up consists of statistical corrections for

measurement error.

To devise a theory that accommodates both response instability and

response effect. Zaller and Feldman in here give us a new alternative

model of the survey response.

Respondent is in ambivalence - that individuals

possess multiple and often conflicting opinions toward

important issue. They will give temporally unstable

responses in the course of a single conversation.

Current attitude models seem quite irrelevant to these

observation.

Zaller and Feldman persuaded that the basic point

about ambivalence represents an important insight.

An Alternative Model of the Survey Response

A deductive model based on three axioms:

The ambivalence axiom: "Most people possess opposing considerations

on most issues, that is, considerations that might lead them to decide the

issue either way."

The response axiom: "Individuals answer survey questions by averaging

across the considerations that happen to be salient at the moment of

response, where salience is determined by the accessibility axiom."

The accessibility axiom: "The accessibility of any given consideration

depends on a stochastic sampling process, where considerations that have

been recently thought about are somewhat more likely to be sampled."

Analysis bases on data from the 1987 Pilot Study of the National

Election Studies (NES).

The study was conducted in two waves a month apart; 457 persons

were interviewed in the May wave and 360 in the June wave. All had

previously participated in the 1986 National Election Study.

The basic method was to ask people a closed-ended policy item and

then to ask them to talk in their own words about the issues it raised.

The closed-ended items were telephone versions of the standard NES

items on job guarantees, aid to blacks, and government services and

spending.

Date of the Model

In form A, respondents were asked the open-ended probes immediately after

answering the given closed-ended policy item. ("retrospective" open-ended probe )

In form B, interviewers read the items in the usual way, but, without waiting for an

answer, they asked respondents to give their reactions to the principal idea elements

in the question.

("prospective" or "stop-and-think" probe)

The two types of probes are clearly not equivalent. The “retrospective“ probes, which

were posed after people had answered the question in the normal way, were designed

to find out what exactly was on people's minds at the moment of response. The

"prospective" or "stop-and-think" probes, on the other hand, were designed to induce

people to search their memories more carefully than they ordinarily would for

pertinent consideration.

Respondents were randomly assigned to question

form and answered the same type of the question

in each wave of the study. The three test items

and associated open-ended probes appeared near

the end of each wave of the survey. Interviewers

wrote down as faithfully as possible all responses

to the open-ended probes, including incidental

side comments (e.g., "This is a tough one").

Using these date, Zaller and Feldman deduce 17

hypotheses, of which they confirm 16 though their

process.

Instance: Deduction 1 - People who are, in general,

more politically aware have more considerations at the

top of their heads and available for use in answering

survey questions.

Response instability and response effects are also

explained by the model in the edduction.

Tests of the Model

The empirical phenomena for which Zaller and

Feldman’s model offers an explanation may be

grouped under three general headings, generally

explaining all these phenomena.

1. Dependence of attitude reports on probabilistic

memory search.

2. Effects of ideas recently made salient.

3. Effects of thought on attitude reports.

Three headings

1. Dependence of attitude reports on probabilistic

memory search.

Because attitude reports are based on memory searches that

are both probabilistic and incomplete, attitude reports tend to

be (1) unstable over time; (2) centered on the mean of the

underlying considerations; and (3) correlated with the

outcomes of memory searches (Deductions 3-5). This is also

why people who are more conflicted in their underlying

considerations are more unstable in their closed ended survey

responses (Deduction 8).

2. Effects of ideas recently made salient.

The notion that individuals' survey responses can

be deflected in the direction of ideas made

recently salient has been used to explain

question order effects, endorsement effects,

race-of-interviewer effects, reference group

effects, question framing effects, and TV news

priming effects (Deductions 9-16).

3. Effects of thought on attitude reports.

The notion that thinking about an issue, as gauged by general levels

of political awareness, enables people to recall a larger number of

considerations and hence to make more reliable responses has been

used to explain why more politically aware persons exhibit greater

response stability and why the public as a whole is more stable on

“doorstep” issues (Deductions 6, 7). It also explains why more

politically aware persons, and persons especially concerned about an

issue, are able to recall more thoughts relevant to it (Deductions 1, 2).

Finally, the notion that greater thought makes attitude reports more

reliable has been invoked, with only limited success, to explain the

effects of extra thought at the moment of responding to an issue

(Deduction 17).

1 People who are, in general, more politically aware have more considerations at the

top of their heads and available for use in answering survey questions.

2. People who have greater interest in an issue should have, all else equal, more

thoughts about that issue readily accessible in memory than other persons.

3. There should be strong correlations between the ideas at the top of people's minds as

they answer survey items and their decisions on the items themselves.

4. There should exist a fair amount of over-time instability in people's attitude reports.

5. Opinions that are subject to repeated measurement should have central tendencies

that are stable over time, but should fluctuate around these central tendencies.

6. The attitude reports of politically aware persons should exhibit greater over-time

stability than those of less-aware persons.

Seventeen Deductions

7. People should be more stable in their responses to closed-ended policy items

concerning doorstep issues-that is, issues so close to everyday concerns that most

people routinely pay some attention to them.

8. Greater ambivalence ought to be associated with higher levels of response

instability.

9. Raising new considerations in immediate proximity to a question should affect

the answers given by making different considerations salient.

10. People who are ambivalent on an issue should be most affected by

manipulations that raise new considerations in immediate proximity to a question

about the issue.

11. Inserting the name of a prominent politician or group into a question should

affect the public's responses to the question (the "endorsement effect").

12. The race of an interviewer should at least sometimes affect the responses to

questions which he or she asks.

13. Manipulations that raise the salience of a reference group can affect responses to

questions on which the reference group has a well-known position.

14. News reports can "prime" certain ideas, thereby making them more accessible for use

in formulating attitude statements on related subjects (the "priming effect").

15. Question order can "prime" certain ideas, thereby inducing correlations with proximate

related items.

16. Inducing individuals to think about their ideological orientation in close proximity to

questions having ideological content can "prime" ideology for use in answering those

questions.

17. Inducing people to think more carefully about an issue before stating an opinion

should enhance the reliability of the opinion report. (Not confirmed.)

Next Part

From ‘simple theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences’ to Receive-Accept-Sample Model

Part 2

This is a model further developed from Zaller and Feldman

1992.

To explain how individuals respond to political information they

may encounter.

Zaller argues that elite-driven communications influence and

constrain public opinion.

That effect, however, is mediated by political awareness

(does the citizen perceive the elite communications?), which

determines the consistency and salience of mass opinion. 

Zaller's RAS Model: Receive-Accept-Sample Model

This model is consists of four axioms, about how

individual respond to political information they may

encounter.

These four axioms work as a group.

This model is based on two phenomena: 1. how

citizens learn about matters that are for the most part

beyond their immediate experience; 2. how they

convert the information they acquire into opinions.

In here, Zaller explain some important conception about the model.

First, the consideration:

The public forms "considerations" in response to elite discourse

(political communications) in the mass media. Often, this discourse

consists of multiple, frequently conflicting streams of persuasive

messages. In general, the greater an individual's level of political

awareness, the more likely she is to receive these messages. Also, the

greater a person's level of awareness, the more likely she is to be

able, under certain circumstances, to resist (or accept) information

that is inconsistent with her basic values or partisanship. If

internalized, political considerations become reasons for taking one

side rather than the other on a political issue.

Second, two types of political messages:

Persuasive messages: arguments or images providing a

reason for taking a position or point of view, if accepted by an

individual, they become considerations;

Cueing messages: carried in elite discourse, consist of

“contextual information” about the ideological or partisan

implications of persuasive message, enable citizens to perceive

relationships between the persuasive message they receive and

their political predispositions.

Four axioms

Reception Axiom

The greater the person's level of cognitive engagement with an issue

the more likely he or she is to be exposed to and comprehend — in a

word, to receive — political messages concerning that issue.

Resistance Axiom

People tend to resist arguments that are inconsistent with their

political predispositions, but they do so only to the extent that they

possess the contextual information necessary to perceive a

relationship between the message and their predispositions.

Accessibility Axiom

The more recently a consideration has been called to

mind or thought about, the less time it takes to retrieve

that consideration or related considerations from

memory and bring them to the top of the head for use.

Response Axiom

Individuals answer survey questions by averaging across

the considerations that are immediately salient or

accessible to them.

The “RAS” model

◦ your stated opinions reflect considerations that you have received

(heard or read about)

◦ accepted (if they are consistent with prior beliefs)

◦ and sampled from (based on what's salient at the time)

The Bucket Analogy

◦ Considerations go into your head as if your head were a bucket.

◦ When you express an opinion, you reach into the bucket for a sample of

considerations; those near the top are more likely to be picked.

◦ You then take the average of these considerations, and that's your

opinion (at the moment).

Receive-Accept-Sample Model

The existence of widespread ambivalence, in

conjunction with the Response Axiom, provides a

ready explanation for it.

More aware persons will exhibit less chance

variability in their survey responses, according to

the A1, they are more likely to possess the cueing

messages necessary to respond to incoming

information in critical manner.

Further explain on the “response instability” in RAS Model

Zaller’s analysis of response instability has focused on effect of

awareness and issue concern on random response fluctuation.

However, if less aware persons exhibit greater chance

fluctuation, shouldn’t they also exhibit greater susceptibility to

enduring or systematic attitude change?

After investigation of attitude stability in the 1972-74-76 NES

panel, which attitude measurements were spaced at two-year

intervals.

The argument: Awareness had no effect on susceptibility to

systematic attitude change. (Zaller, 1986)

In RAS model, response variation is rooted in an important

substantive phenomenon, namely the common existence of

ambivalence in people’s reactions to issues.

This ambivalence has numerous implications for such

matters as the priming effect of the mass media, the effect

of survey question order, and attitude change.

The RAS model’s account of response instability is an

integral part of much more comprehensive way of thinking

about public opinion.

A term that refers to cases in which seemingly

irrelevant features of questionnaire design affect

the responses given.

Considering the example in the Part 1’s “response

effects”, it may be readily explained by axiom A3

in this model, which implies that the more recently

a consideration has been activated, the more

accessible it is for use in answering questions.

Further explain on the “ response effects” in RAS Model

Response effects were widely considered to be

“methodological artifacts” that indicated nothing of

theoretical significance about the nature of mass political

attitudes, but have always been given substantive

interpretations - three effects: 1)Race of interviewer,

2)Reference groups, 3) “priming effects” of television news.

These three effects may be counted as additional empirical

regularities for which the RAS model, in particular A3 and

A4, gives an explanation.

Also, RAS model is well suited to explaining priming effects.

It can be used in explaining the case of the Iran-Contra controversy on

ratings of Reagan’s job performance.

Prior to Iran-Contra, most media messages on Reagan focused on his social

welfare policy, which gave people a kind of considerations, as the

gatekeeper entering their heads.

When the Iran-Contra scandal happened, the former considerations was no

longer in people’s head, but the anticommunist or not became a

considerations about pro-Reagan or anti-Reagan.

Considerations that citizens use in evaluating presidential performance or

other types of attitude reports are significantly affected by the way the

topic has been framed in elite discourse.

Attitude change (understood as the a change in

people's long term response probabilities) results from a

change in the mix of ideas to which people are exposed.

Changes in the flow of political communication cause

attitude change not by producing a sudden conversion

experience but by producing gradual changes in the

balance of considerations that are present in people's

minds and available for answering survey questions.

Conclusions of the Zaller’s RAS Model

The psychology view of the survey response

Part 3

Make two main points:

1. Attitudes are preexisting evaluations of some target.

2. They are relatively stable

File drawer model (Wilson and Hodges 1992,p.38)

Three possible alternative sources for answers to attitude questions:

a. Impressions or stereotypes

When we don’t have a very clear sense about an issue, we may fall back on a general impression about the target or the category to which it belongs. Under these circumstances, our responses to an attitude question may reflect this overall impression. (Sanbonmatsu&Fazio,1990)

b. General attitudes or values The public’s the public’s reaction to press coverage of

political issue is determined by such predispositions; these involve basic political values, deeper underlying principles. (Zaller;1992)

Alternative Paths to an Answer

c. Specific beliefs or feeling about the target

Open-Ended MaterialWhen the order of the questions raises the salience of some particular domain or incidents, it tends to affect the rating of overall topic.

Priming StudiesFor example: (an initial item and a subsequent item)Abortion and women’s rightAbortion and U.S. policy toward Central American

Result: The closer the two questions, the more that retrieving considerations for the first question would reduce the time needed to retrieve considerations for the next. 

They argue that responses to attitude questions

can be understood as the outcome of a question-

answering process in which people

(1) Comprehension

(2) Retrieval

(3) Judgment

(4) Response (Tourangeau et al. 2000).

The Belief-Sampling Model

Retrieval: Key assumption of the belief-sampling model is that

retrieval yields a haphazard assortment of beliefs, feelings, impressions, general values, and prior judgments about an issue; (cf. Zaller, 1992).

Judgment:

Under many circumstances, multiple considerations about

an issue will come to mind, and the respondent will have to

combine them to produce an overall judgment.

The output from the judgment component is a simple

average of the considerations that are the input to it.

In the equation :

J : the output of the judgement component.

S i : the scale value assigned to a consideration

retrieved from long-term memory.

n : the number of considerations the respondent

take into account. 

/n

iJ s n

According to the belief-sampling model,

responses to attitude questions are inherently

unstable because they are based on a sample of

the relevant material, a sample that over

represents whatever considerations happen to be

accessible when the question is asked.

Second source of unreliability is in the values that

respondents assign to the considerations.

Implications for Response Stability

With a few additional assumptions, we can use

Judgment Equation to make quantitative

predictions about the correlation between

responses to the same question over time.

The key assumption is that the response actually

given to an attitude is a simpler linear

transformation of the Judgment described by

Equation.

According to the model, three key parameters

determine the level of the correlation between

responses to the same item on two occasions.

The first is the reliability of the scaling process,

measured by the correlation between the scale

values assigned to the same consideration on two

occasions.

The second parameter that affects the correlation

between answers overtime is the degree to which any

two considerations retrieved by the same respondent

are correlated.

The final parameter that affects the correlation

between responses over time is the degree of overlap

in the sets of considerations taken into account on

different occasions.

Reliability over two occasionsThis Equation shows the expected level of the correlation between

responses on two occasions as a function of these three parameters:

n1: Number of considerations sampled at time 1

n2: Number of considerations sampled at time 2

ρ1: Consistency in assigning scale values (scaling consistency)

ρ2: Homogeniety in pool of considerations(homogeniety)

q: Overlap between samples, expressed as proportion of

n2(overlap)  

1 2 1 2 2 1 2

12 2 21 2 1 2 2 2 2 2

(1 )

(1 ) (1 )

n n n q

n n n n

Attitudes is a kind of memory structure that

contains existing evaluations, vague impressions,

general values, and relevant feelings and beliefs.

On any given occasion when we think about an

issue, some subset of these contents will come to

mind.

Conclusions

Thank You!