"A Further Comment on "Anomy

istered questionnaires. Erlich notes that under such conditions respondents may well choose to lie, to be evasive, or to answer randomly or in a careless or offhand manner. 9 In an inordinately long questionnaire, covering extremely sensitive materials, one can predict that risk of such instrumentally-induced, validity-confounding tendencies would be substantially enlarged. In 1964 article, McClosky acknowledges the length and complexity of questionnaire and difficulty associated with its self-administration. This observation is his basis for expecting underrepresentation of non-college people in his achieved national sample, but it is not extended to explain his finding that a surprisingly large number of voters [achieved national sample subjects] simultaneously score high on a Right Wing scale [anti-welfare state] and [high also] on a liberal issues scale [prowelfare state] or hold other 'discrepant' [i.e., mutually contradictory] outlooks (p. 373). Instead of relating this evidence to possible response and instrument errors in an over-reaching, paper-and-pencil instrument, McClosky focuses on substantive finding that such discrepancies are more among and file (i.e., McClosky achieved national sample) than among a self-selected sample of better-educated party leaders (reported in 1960 paper). These surprisingly numerous self-contradictions are not seen as possible artifacts of respondents skimming through hastily scanned questions in great profusion, with effects probably mediated by education variable. Rather, they are taken as evidence of intrinsic, relative lack of clarity among rank and file about most elementary, bread and butter, political issues confronting them. Thus does over-extended, champagne-appetite, beer-budget research yield an artifactually spiked generalization about political maturity of American electorate.'0 I submit as a painstakingly considered and regretted opinion, that surveys reported in McClosky-Schaar Review article are so seriously flawed in their technical design as to challenge generality and validity claimed for their findings and conclusions. The technological faults of surveys conducted in 1955 and 1958, however, have no prejudicial bearing on theoretical part of article, which seems to have been written some years later. Although I disagree with it, I think that section warrants respectful attention in its own right

Psychology · Wine Industry and Tourism

• Success and Anomie

  Open Access•Robert Agnew, Robert S Agnew•Sociological Quarterly•1980

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• Hippiedom 1970

  Open Access•Kenneth Westhues•Sociological Quarterly•1972

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