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The article examines the relationship between call screening and issues related to nonresponse by focusing on the use of telephone answering machines (TAM) and caller identification services (Caller-ID) as call-screening devices in the U.S. While much has been written about the problems associated with TAM, there have been fewer studies of the impact of Caller-ID services on the conduct of public opinion surveys. It was discovered in a national, face-to-face survey that Caller-ID subscribers were more likely to be involved in political and social activities than were respondents who do not use or have access to such services or devices. The research presented here builds on and extends this work in several ways. First, it provide a current profile of those in South Carolina who report using Caller-ID, a TAM, or both to screen their unwanted telephone calls. Second, it offer an analysis of the types of listings that are displayed in Caller-ID units and whether these listings make respondents more willing or more hesitant to answer the phone. It also examines the effects of screening practices on several measures of nonresponse, including the number of attempts it takes to complete surveys by telephone, the number of days on which calls were attempted, and the likelihood of encountering a refusal before obtaining a completion with the selected respondent.

Increased incidence of telephone answering machines and the use of such devices to screen calls pose a potential threat to the representativeness of samples in telephone surveys. Using data from nine statewide surveys, this analysis examines the extent to which answering machines are used to screen calls and the demographic characteristics associated with answering machine use and call screening. Results show that at most two to three percent of households use answering machines to screen calls, and that such screening is more likely to take place in households with higher family incomes, outside rural areas, and which include individuals who are younger and have higher levels of education. While call screening does not presently threaten the representativeness of samples in telephone surveys, the increased incidence of answering machines together with the increased percentage of households indicating these devices are sometimes used to screen calls demonstrate that the potential bias from this source is growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A failure to replicate a previously demonstrated order effect on responses to questions about abortion led to a second experiment which was designed to test the hypothesis that-the failure was due to a change in the question context which had immediately preceded the abortion items in the original experiments by Schuman, et al. Unlike the results of the first experiment, the results of this second experiment showed that the order effect reported by Schuman and his associates does replicate. In addition, the data indicate that context may condition the magnitude of this order effect. The authors also suggest that the effect may be due to the implicit contrast between the reasons given for abortion by the items when they are asked in one order rather than the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research shows, as have previous studies, that a substantial number of people will offer opinions on fictitious topics in the context of a survey interview. The results of a split-ballot experiment (and a replication) with three fictitious public affairs issues suggest that people give opinions on such matters in large part because of the pressure to answer survey questions that is created by the way in which the questions are asked and by the manner in which "don't know" responses are handled by the inter- viewer. The findings also indicate that there may be little or no relationship between an individual's willingness to admit ignorance and his or her inclination to volunteer opinions on fictitious issues, as measured by at least one item from the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. in addition, the data demonstrate that blacks and less well- educated respondents are more likely than their counterparts to offer opinions on fictitious issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much people think they follow what's going on in government and public affairs depends upon the context in which they are asked the question. If asked immediately after difficult questions about what they know of their congressman's record, they are much less likely to think they pay attention to public affairs than if they are asked, first, how interested they are in such matters. More important, data from two independent experiments show that this context effect cannot be eliminated, or significantly reduced, by interposing a buffer of questions on unrelated topics between the items that are known to affect one another. The authors discuss the psychological significance of these findings and their implications for survey research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending previous work, the authors find that the wording of a filter question can make a significant difference in the percentage of "don't know" (DK) responses elicited by an item, especially with topics that are more abstract or less familiar to survey respondents. They also find, however, that the content of an item can have a substantial, independent effect on DK or "no opinion" responses, regardless of how the filter question is worded. In general, it appears that the less familiar the issue or topic, the greater the increase in DK responses produced by adding a filter. Even more important, the analysis shows that filtering can in some instances dramatically affect the conclusions a pollster would draw about the distribution of public opinion on an issue. Indeed, such effects may occur more often than has previously been suspected, though the circumstances under which they emerge remain elusive. The authors suggest that such effects may become amenable to analysis by probing respondents about "what they had in mind" as they answered the question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Vietnam War, public preferences on foreign policy issues have played a greater role in the American political process. Yet comparatively little is known about the manner in which attitudes on international affairs are formed and how they are related to other political cognitions. Using data from two large studies of foreign policy opinion conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1974 and 1978, this research examines the question of how mass and elite opinion differs in a number of foreign policy domains and looks at whether these distinctions have changed across years. In general, there are patterns of difference in the foreign policy beliefs of the elites and the mass public, the most striking being in their "internationalist" view of the U.S. role in world affairs, with smaller distinctions in the domains of human rights, detente, world problems, Americanism, and international organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from a split-ballot experiment show that offering respondents an alternative position on an issue not only affects the marginals, it also influences whether respondents will give an opinion at all. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that these form effects can occur despite the use of filter questions which theoretically screen out those who tend to be most susceptible to such effects: the less educated or uninformed. The analysis does provide evidence, however, that less educated respondents are indeed more affected by differences in question format and that they are much more likely to "acquiesce" to one-sided agree/disagree forms. In discussing the results the authors develop an information-processing model of question form effects and a methodological strategy to generate further research on a much-needed theory of the survey instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the often suspected but rarely researched tendency of survey respondents to give opinions on topics to which they have given little or no thought. The findings, based on a question about a fictitious public affairs issue, do show that the magnitude of the problem is substantial. But the data also demonstrate social-psychological dispositions which can be elicited, unwittingly, in the context of the interview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies in the past decade have suggested that the American voter has become increasingly sophisticated, ideologically, and that this is due largely to the separate or combined impact of the growing educational attainments of the U.S. public and the greater salience of politics in the 1960s and 1970s. This study, however, hypothesizes that much of the change might be due to a simple methodological artifact-changes in question wording and format-and reports data from a recent national experiment which strongly supports such an interpretation. The generalizations derived from The American Voter may, therefore, not be quite as "time-bound" as the current literature would lead us to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]