scholarly journals How Information Affects Support for Education Spending: Evidence from Survey Experiments in Germany and the United States

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin West ◽  
Ludger Woessmann ◽  
Philipp Lergetporer ◽  
Katharina Werner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Survey Experiments

scholarly journals How information affects support for education spending: Evidence from survey experiments in Germany and the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 138-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Lergetporer ◽  
Guido Schwerdt ◽  
Katharina Werner ◽  
Martin R. West ◽  
Ludger Woessmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Survey Experiments

scholarly journals WHEN DO CITIZENS TAKE COSTLY ACTION AGAINST GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION? EVIDENCE FROM EXPERIMENTS IN AUSTRALIA, SINGAPORE, AND THE UNITED STATES

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Fiona Yap
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Threshold Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Government Corruption ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Stag Hunt Game

AbstractWhen do citizens take costly collective action against government corruption? When citizens act in concert, their demands are credible and not easily discounted by governments, which should be more likely to respond. In this study, we use the stag-hunt game, supplemented by Granovetter's threshold model of collective action, to investigate the conditions under which citizens coordinate to collectively act against government corruption. We use survey experiments in laboratory settings in Australia, Singapore, and the United States. The results show several conditions motivate participants to pursue collective action; using the wellspring of the theoretical argument, they clarify that information that others pursue collective action, together with clear mutual benefits as measured by rewards, are primary motivators of the individual's choice. Correspondingly, other considerations, including initial costs or final potential penalties, do not bear on the individual's choice. The findings have implications not only for the empirical literature on policy but also for policy debates on how to control it.

A Clash of Norms? How Reciprocity and International Humanitarian Law affect American Opinion on the Treatment of POWs

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 1140-1164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Experimental Control ◽  
Lack Of Control ◽  
Survey Experiments

Reciprocity is one of the oldest principles of warfare, but humanitarian norms embedded in international humanitarian law (IHL) prohibit reciprocity over various wartime acts. When it comes to the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs), how do these conflicting norms shape public opinion? One perspective is that citizens who learn about IHL acquire an unconditional aversion to abusing POWs. Alternatively, people may understand IHL as a conditional commitment that instead strengthens their approval for reciprocal conduct. Survey experiments fielded in the United States support the latter view: people’s preferences depend on the enemy’s behavior, and this “reciprocity effect” is largest among those who believe that the United States is legally committed to treating POWs humanely. Puzzlingly, prior studies do not find a reciprocity effect, but this is due to their use of a no-information experimental control group, which led to a lack of control over the subjects’ assumptions about the survey.

scholarly journals Persuading US White evangelicals to vaccinate for COVID-19: Testing message effectiveness in fall 2020 and spring 2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (49) ◽  
pp. e2114762118
Author(s):  
Scott E. Bokemper ◽  
Alan S. Gerber ◽  
Saad B. Omer ◽  
Gregory A. Huber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Single Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Message Effectiveness ◽  
Community Interest ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Community Protection ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Over Time

The development of COVID-19 vaccines was an important breakthrough for ending the pandemic. However, people refusing to get vaccinated diminish the level of community protection afforded to others. In the United States, White evangelicals have proven to be a particularly difficult group to convince to get vaccinated. Here we investigate whether this group can be persuaded to get vaccinated. To do this, we leverage data from two survey experiments, one fielded prior to approval of COVID-19 vaccines (study 1) and one fielded after approval (study 2). In both experiments, respondents were randomly assigned to treatment messages to promote COVID-19 vaccination. In study 1, we find that a message that emphasizes community interest and reciprocity with an invocation of embarrassment for choosing not to vaccinate is the most effective at increasing uptake intentions, while values-consistent messaging appears to be ineffective. In contrast, in study 2 we observe that this message is no longer effective and that most messages produce little change in vaccine intent. This inconsistency may be explained by the characteristics of White evangelicals who remain unvaccinated vis à vis those who got vaccinated. These results demonstrate the importance of retesting messages over time, the apparent limitations of values-targeted messaging, and document the need to consider heterogeneity even within well-defined populations. This work also cautions against drawing broad conclusions from studies carried out at a single point in time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Antidiscrimination Interventions, Political Ads on Transgender Rights, and Public Opinion: Results From Two Survey Experiments on Adults in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Flores ◽  
Donald P. Haider-Markel ◽  
Daniel C. Lewis ◽  
Patrick R. Miller ◽  
Jami K. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Attitude Change ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Transgender People ◽  
Political Advertisements ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Political Ads

Political advertisements can shift attitudes and behaviors to become more exclusionary toward social out-groups. However, people who engage in an antidiscrimination exercise in the context of an experiment may respond differently to such ads. What interventions might foster inclusive attitudes in the presence of political communications about social policy issues like transgender rights? We examined two scalable antidiscrimination exercises commonly used in applied settings: describing a personal narrative of discrimination and perspective-taking. We then showed people political ads that are favorable or opposed to transgender rights to determine whether those interventions moderate how receptive people are to the messages. Relying on two demographically representative survey experiments of adults in the United States (study 1 N = 1,291; study 2 N = 1,587), we found that personal recollections of discriminatory experiences did not reduce exclusionary attitudes, but perspective-taking had some effects, particularly among those who fully complied with the exercise. However, both studies revealed potential backfire effects; recalling a discriminatory experience induced negative attitudes among a subset of the participants, and participants who refused to perspective-take when prompted also held more negative attitudes. Importantly, political ads favorable toward transgender rights consistently resulted in more positive attitudes toward transgender people. Future work needs to carefully examine heterogeneous responses and resistance to antidiscrimination interventions and examine what particular aspects of the political ads induced the attitude change.

Popular Support for Constitutional Rights Violations

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Adam S. Chilton ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
The Face

This chapter presents findings from two survey experiments that explore popular support for individual rights: one focused on free speech in Turkey and one focused on torture in the United States. For both countries, we designed a survey experiment to gauge whether people’s support for a policy changes when they are informed that this policy violates the constitution, and whether people are willing to mobilize to protect their constitutional rights in the face of violations. The goal of the survey experiments was to explore the mechanisms through which rights mobilization can occur and, specifically, whether constitutional violations change people’s positions or motivate them to take action. Both experiments found that being informed that a certain policy violates the constitution does not change popular opinion, which might be one of the reasons why constitutional rights are hard to enforce in the absence of formal organizations.

Legislative Staff and Representation in Congress

2018 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER HERTEL-FERNANDEZ ◽  
MATTO MILDENBERGER ◽  
LEAH C. STOKES
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Staff Perceptions ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Policy Information ◽  
Congressional Staff ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

Legislative staff link Members of Congress and their constituents, theoretically facilitating democratic representation. Yet, little research has examined whether Congressional staff actually recognize the preferences of their Members’ constituents. Using an original survey of senior US Congressional staffers, we show that staff systematically mis-estimate constituent opinions. We then evaluate the sources of these misperceptions, using observational analyses and two survey experiments. Staffers who rely more heavily on conservative and business interest groups for policy information have more skewed perceptions of constituent opinion. Egocentric biases also shape staff perceptions. Our findings complicate assumptions that Congress represents constituent opinion, and help to explain why Congress often appears so unresponsive to ordinary citizens. We conclude that scholars should focus more closely on legislative aides as key actors in the policymaking process, both in the United States and across other advanced democracies.

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