{"title":"Estimating the Persistence of Party Cue Influence in a Panel Survey Experiment","authors":"Ben M. Tappin, Luke B. Hewitt","doi":"10.1017/XPS.2021.22","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Perhaps hundreds of survey experiments have shown that political party cues influence people’s policy opinions. However, we know little about the persistence of this influence: is it a transient priming effect, dissipating moments after the survey is over, or does influence persist for longer, indicating learning? We report the results of a panel survey experiment in which US adults were randomly exposed to party cues on five contemporary US policy issues in an initial survey and gave their opinions. A follow-up survey 3 days later polled their opinions again. We find that the influence of the party cues persists at ∼50% its original magnitude at follow-up. Notably, our design rules out that people simply remembered how they previously answered. Our findings have implications for understanding the scope and mechanism of party cue influence as it occurs in the real world and provide a benchmark for future research on this topic.","PeriodicalId":37558,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Political Science","volume":"10 1","pages":"50 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Political Science","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2021.22","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract Perhaps hundreds of survey experiments have shown that political party cues influence people’s policy opinions. However, we know little about the persistence of this influence: is it a transient priming effect, dissipating moments after the survey is over, or does influence persist for longer, indicating learning? We report the results of a panel survey experiment in which US adults were randomly exposed to party cues on five contemporary US policy issues in an initial survey and gave their opinions. A follow-up survey 3 days later polled their opinions again. We find that the influence of the party cues persists at ∼50% its original magnitude at follow-up. Notably, our design rules out that people simply remembered how they previously answered. Our findings have implications for understanding the scope and mechanism of party cue influence as it occurs in the real world and provide a benchmark for future research on this topic.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) features cutting-edge research that utilizes experimental methods or experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data. We define experimental methods broadly: research featuring random (or quasi-random) assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments. We invite authors to submit concise articles (around 4000 words or fewer) that immediately address the subject of the research. We do not require lengthy explanations regarding and justifications of the experimental method. Nor do we expect extensive literature reviews of pros and cons of the methodological approaches involved in the experiment unless the goal of the article is to explore these methodological issues. We expect readers to be familiar with experimental methods and therefore to not need pages of literature reviews to be convinced that experimental methods are a legitimate methodological approach. We will consider longer articles in rare, but appropriate cases, as in the following examples: when a new experimental method or approach is being introduced and discussed or when novel theoretical results are being evaluated through experimentation. Finally, we strongly encourage authors to submit manuscripts that showcase informative null findings or inconsistent results from well-designed, executed, and analyzed experiments.