Deliberation from Within

Changing One's Mind During an Interview

Bibliographic Data

ID6337192
AuthorsPatrick Fournier (0000-0002-0300-8476, Université de Montréal), Mathieu Turgeon (0000-0003-0134-4027, Universidade de Brasília), André Blais (0000-0003-4292-110X, Université de Montréal), Joanna Everitt (0000-0001-5551-4357, University of New Brunswick), Elisabeth Gidengil (0000-0001-8198-5654, McGill University), Neil Nevitte (University of Toronto)
Year2011
Volume32
Issue5
Pages885-919
Publication date2011-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00835.x
OpenAlexW1507761640
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited70

This article examines whether a public opinion survey can improve the quality of political attitudes. More specifically, we argue that simply positioning a summary attitudinal question after a balanced series of relevant items can increase people's ability to answer in a way that better reflects their underlying interests, values, and predispositions. By manipulating the location of the vote preference question in two separate national election campaign surveys, we find that there are fewer undecided respondents when the question is asked at the end of the survey rather than early on, that some people are changing their mind during the questionnaire, that a larger set of determinants is structuring late‐survey vote choice, and that voting preferences based on the later question are a better predictor of the actual vote. The findings carry important lessons for students of deliberation and of citizen decision making

Deliberation · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Preference · Public opinion · Public relations · Quality (philosophy · Set (abstract data type · Structuring · Survey data collection · Voting · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub