THREE "CLIMATE OF OPINION" STUDIES.

Here are three studies in opinion climatology which were presented at an American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) symposium during 1960 conference in Atlantic City. These papers are devoted to expositions of a technique for relating social structural variables to opinion, a technique which has attracted increased attention during the past few years. Opinion is surely not formed in a social vacuum, it cannot be understood without an understanding of its relations to its environment. Attempts to account for either the distribution of opinion on an issue or differences in the distribution observed among various subgroups of a sample of people have been a standard feature of public opinion research for several decades. On the simplest level, cross-tabulations by age, sex, socio-economic status, or place of residence constitute attempts of this kind. In short, quite apart from their substantive contributions, these three papers serve to illustrate some of the methodological procedures which are today on the frontier of opinion and attitude research.