Affiliation:
1. Department of Political Science, Auburn University, USA
2. Department of Political Science, Texas Christian University, USA
Abstract
Research on mass political behavior relies extensively on ideology scales. The majority of political science surveys use a unique, and potentially problematic, word to anchor the endpoints of these scales (“extremely”). However, political science has surprisingly little evidence on the effects of using this anchor over others. We utilize an older, but ignored, survey experiment on the 1989 American National Election Study (ANES) Pilot Study to analyze the consequences of the choice between using “very” or “extremely” endpoint labels. Theoretically, our results illustrate how a seemingly negative question anchor helps optimally measure a key concept (ideology) that is fundamental to understanding phenomena such as mass polarization.
Subject
Political Science and International Relations,Public Administration,Sociology and Political Science
Cited by
8 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献