Turbulences in the Climate of Opinion: Methodological Applications of the Spiral of Silence Theory

New tools for measuring changes in public opinion can be derivedfrom the theory of the spiral of silence. Measures of individualassessment of the climate of opinion and of confidence aboutshowing one's own opinion document the processes by which thelosing side falls increasingly silent and the winning side istherefore overrated.     

RATING SCALES NUMERIC VALUES MAY CHANGE THE MEANING OF SCALE LABELS

Three experiments indicate that the numeric values providedas part of a rating scale may influence respondents' interpretationof the endpoint labels. In experiment 1, a representative sampleof German adults rated their success in life along an 11-pointrating scale, with the endpoints labeled "not at all successful"and "extremely successful." When the numeric values ranged from0 ("not at all successful") to 10 ("extremely successful"),34 percent of the respondents endorsed values between 0 and5. However, only 13 percent endorsed formally equivalent valuesbetween –5 and 0, when the scale ranged from –5("not at all successful") to +5 ("extremely successful"). Experiment2 provided an extended conceptual replication of this finding,and experiment 3 demonstrates that recipients of a respondent'sreport draw different inferences from formally equivalent butnumerically different values. In combination, the findings indicatethat respondents use the numeric values to disambiguate themeaning of scale labels, resulting in different interpretationsand, accordingly, different subjective scale anchors.     

The Public Opinion Research Correspondent

This essay outlines a contract concluded by the leading Germannewspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the Allensbach Institutfür Demoskopie which breaks new ground in journalism bycreating the position of the public opinion research correspondent.     

ASKING COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS: THE IMPACT OF THE DIRECTION OF COMPARISON

Questions assessing comparative judgments are often phrasedas directed comparisons, that is, a stimulus A (subject) isto be compared to a stimulus B (referent); for example, "Istennis more exciting than soccer or less exciting?" Tversky'swork on judgment of similarity indicated that comparing A toB may result in different similarity judgments than comparingB to A. The four studies reported in this article extend thiswork from judgments of similarity to evaluative judgments ingeneral. The results demonstrate that the direction of comparisonelicited by the wording of the question can have a strong impacton the obtained results. In some instances, a reversal in thedirection of comparison (i.e., comparing A to B vs. B to A)resulted in a reversal of the ordinal ranking. Implicationsfor question wording are discussed.