The Perceived Threat of Nuclear War, Salience, and Open Questions

The most serious problem facing the United States, accordingto many scientific and political leaders, is the threat of nuclearwar. Yet the standard survey question on the most importantproblem facing the country has often shown little public concurrencewith this assumption. Our article uses experimentation in nationalsamples to test whether this difference can be traced to limitationsin either the form or the wording of the standard question.The results indicate that there are some important systematicdifferences between open and closed versions of the question,and also differences that result from reference to the nationas distinct from the world, but neither type of difference accountsfor the infrequent mention of nuclear war on the standard question.Instead, other evidence indicates that most Americans believethat nuclear war is not going to happen at all, or that if itdoes happen it will be too far in the distant future to be ofpressing concern to them personally.