Response and order effects in referendum voting: Exploring the influence of contextual bias on public policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/0148-2963(94)90072-8Get rights and content

Abstract

The effects of contextual bias on referendum voting are explored in a voting experiment. Order of the response options (response-effect bias) and of the questions (order-effect bias) is manipulated, and its impact on electoral outcomes is estimated. Results, although mixed, suggest that response effects may exert enough influence to distort the assessment of public mandates.

References (37)

  • H.M. Bain et al.

    Ballot Position and Voter's Choice

    (1957)
  • S.L. Becker

    Why an Order Effect

    Public Opinion Q.

    (1954)
  • G.F. Bishop et al.

    What Must My Interest in Politics Be If I Just Told You “I Don't Know”?

    Public Opinion Q.

    (1984)
  • G.F. Bishop et al.

    Opinions on Fictitious Issues: The Pressure to Answer Survey Questions

    Public Opinion Q.

    (1986)
  • N.M. Bradburn et al.

    The Effect of Question Order on Responses

    J. Marketing Res.

    (Nov. 1964)
  • D. Brook et al.

    Biases in Local Government Elections Due to Position on the Ballot Paper

    Appl. Statistics

    (1974)
  • H. Cantril

    Gauging Public Opinion

    (1944)
  • J. Carpenter

    Comprehension of Negation with Qualification

    J. Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

    (1971)
  • H.H. Hyman et al.

    The Current Status of American Public Opinion

  • J. Jacoby et al.

    Corrective Advertising and Affirmative Disclosure Statements: Their Potential for Confusing and Misleading the Consumer

    J. Marketing

    (1982)
  • J. Kelley et al.

    Ballot Paper Cues and the Vote in Australia and Britain: Alphabetic Voting, Sex and Title

    Public Opinion Q.

    (1984)
  • J.A. Krosnick et al.

    An Evaluation of a Cognitive Theory of Response-Order Effects in Survey Measurement

    Public Opinion Q.

    (1987)
  • J.A. Krosnick et al.

    Attitude Intensity, Importance, and Certainly and Susceptibility to Response Effects

    J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

    (Jan. 1988)
  • A. Kornhauser et al.

    Questionnaire Construction and Interview Procedure

  • E.L. Landon

    Order Bias, The Ideal Rating and the Semantic Differential

  • P. Lemov

    How to Win (or Lose) a Bond Referendum

    Governing

    (Feb. 1990)
  • D. Magleby

    Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States

    (1984)
  • D. Magleby

    Legislatures and the Initiative: The Politics of Direct Democracy

    J. Council of State Governments

    (Spring 1986)
  • Cited by (4)

    • Guiding the consumer evaluation process and the probability of order-effects-in-choice

      2020, Journal of Business Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      These order-effects-in-choice have been found for many different types of consumer experiences, including beer (Coney, 1977), soda (Dean, 1980), flavored water (Biswas, Grewal, & Roggeveen, 2010), bubble gum (Carney & Banaji, 2012), and wine (Mantonakis et al., 2009) as determined by taste tests. Order-effects-in-choice also occur for song preferences (Biswas et al., 2010; Pandelaere, Millet, & Van den Bergh, 2010), jury evaluations (Bruine de Bruin, 2005; 2006; Bruine de Bruin & Keren, 2003), donation decisions (Huber, Van Boven, McGraw, & Johnson-Graham, 2011), and voting for political candidates (Abakoumkin, 2011; Handlin, 1994; Miller & Krosnick, 1998; Kim, Krosnick, & Casanto, 2015). Beyond a consumer context, serial position can even have an influence on decisions of manufacturing firms (Muthulingam, Corbett, Benartzi, & Oppenheim, 2013), paper citing by academics (Feenberg, Ganguli, Gaulé, & Gruber, 2017; Huang, 2015), the diagnoses of clinical psychologists (Cwik & Margraf, 2017), and even the decisions of rhesus macaque monkeys (Xu, Knight, & Kralik, 2011).

    • Understanding and improving the validity of self-report of parenting

      2006, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review
    View full text