Dennis Chong

Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies

What is the effect of democratic competition on the power of elites to frame public opinion? We address this issue first by defining the range of competitive contexts that might surround any debate over a policy issue. We then offer a theory that predicts how audiences, messages, and competitive environments interact to influence the magnitude of framing effects. These hypotheses are tested using experimental data gathered on the opinions of adults and college students toward two policy issues—the management of urban growth and the right of an extremist group to conduct a rally. Our results indicate that framing effects depend more heavily on the qualities of frames than on their frequency of dissemination and that competition alters but does not eliminate the influence of framing. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for the study of public opinion and democratic political debate.

Dynamic Public Opinion: Communication Effects Over Time

We develop an approach to studying public opinion that accounts for how people process competing messages received over the course of a political campaign or policy debate. Instead of focusing on the fixed impact of a message, we emphasize that a message can have variable effects depending on when it is received within a competitive context and how it is evaluated. We test hypotheses about the effect of information processing using data from two experiments that measure changes in public opinion in response to alternative sequences of information. As in past research, we find that competing messages received at the same time neutralize one another. However, when competing messages are separated by days or weeks, most individuals give disproportionate weight to the most recent communication because previous effects decay over time. There are exceptions, though, as people who engage in deliberate processing of information display attitude stability and give disproportionate weight to previous messages. These results show that people typically form significantly different opinions when they receive competing messages over time than when they receive the same messages simultaneously. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for understanding the power of communications in contemporary politics.

When Self-Interest Matters

The relative influence of self-interest and values on policy preferences was assessed experimentally in a national survey that posed questions about three contemporary political issues—Social Security reform, the home mortgage interest tax deduction, and health care benefits for domestic partners. For each issue, respondents were randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions that influenced the frame of reference for their policy evaluations. The results show that people are more likely to recognize their own self-interest, and to act upon it, when their stakes in the policy are clear or when they have been primed to think about the personal costs and benefits of the policy. This relationship is somewhat weakened but not eliminated when sociotropic considerations are primed. People with a smaller stake in an issue are less likely to behave on the basis of self-interest and more likely to be influenced by their values and symbolic predispositions, especially when exposed to information that cues sociotropic concerns, group identifications, or value orientations.

The Experiences and Effects of Economic Status Among Racial and Ethnic Minorities

We propose and test a theory of opportunities that explains the conditions in which economic status affects support for racial and ethnic group interests among African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Using data from a 2001 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University national survey, our analysis finds that, for all minority groups, the effect of economic status on support for group interests is mediated by the socioeconomic experiences of individuals. Intergroup differences therefore result from varying experiences and perceptions of discrimination among minority groups rather than from group-specific theoretical processes. Compared to Latinos and Asian Americans, African Americans are least responsive to changes in economic circumstances because they are on the whole more pessimistic about their life prospects and more likely to encounter discrimination. But we find in general that, among those minority individuals who perceive equal opportunity and experience less discrimination, higher economic status often leads to a reduced emphasis on race and ethnicity. These results demonstrate that the incorporation of a minority group into American society depends not only on the actions of group members but also on the fair treatment of that group by the majority population.

Rational choice theory's mysterious rivals

Although rational choice theory has enjoyed only modest predictive success, it provides a powerful explanatory mechanism for social processes involving strategic interaction among individuals and it stimulates interesting empirical inquiries. Rather than present competing theories to compare against rational choice, Don Green and Ian Shapiro have merely alluded to alternative explanatory variables such as culture, institutions, and social norms, without showing either how these factors can be incorporated into a more powerful theory, or how they are inconsistent with rational choice theory. It is likely that any eventual theory of the origin and maintenance of social institutions, norms, and values will have to reserve a central place for rational action.

Tolerance and social adjustment to new norms and practices

All forms of political tolerance—political, racial, religious, and social—involve a measure of social adjustment to unconventional groups, ideas, and activities. Tolerance does not depend entirely on the generosity of those who are willing to restrain themselves from punishing and repressing those who deviate from societys norms. Rather it depends also on the ability of people to assuage fears and anxieties and to reconcile themselves to social change. Because people are able to adapt psychologically to changes in norms and practices, increases in tolerance are not necessarily accompanied by increases in self-restraint, social strain, or tension. Several illustrations of social adjustment drawn from diverse arenas are presented as well as a more exact dynamic model of how this process works.

When Morality and Economics Collide (or Not) in a Texas Community

In 1993, citizens in conservative Williamson County, Texas, debated whether to grant tax breaks to attract Apple Computer Company, even though Apple maintained an unpopular policy of extending health care benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of employees. We visited Williamson County to speak with local citizens and the main participants about how they resolved their dilemma. The analysis in this paper rests on these interviews, county survey data, and correspondence sent to politicians during the controversy. We analyze why some people are more prepared than others to sacrifice material gain in order to preserve their social and moral values. And we explore whether actions aimed at preserving a community consensus around particular moral beliefs and lifestyles can be construed as rational and, if so, in what sense. We conclude from the Apple case that the development and maintenance of a value system is imbued with interests. Cultural values coordinate political coalitions and social activities, counsel people on how to live, and constitute a simple folk theory that lends conherence to their lives. People do the best they can within the biases and constraints of their value system.

Coordinating Demands for Social Change

Mass protest movements resemble assurance games, in which individual decisions to contribute are contingent on the aggregate level of participation. While participation in ineffective movements carries high costs and returns few collective and selective benefits, participation in successful social movements can be more advantageous than abstention. Supporters of a movement therefore try to coordinate their decisions with those of other activists, participating when it appears that the movement has sufficient popular support to be politically effective, but not otherwise. Such decisions, however, typically have to be made with considerable uncertainty about both the intentions of other individuals and the prospects of the movement as it develops. Given this individual calculus, a number of deductions can be drawn about the resources, strategies, goals, and political conditions that will be required to coordinate and organize mass social protest.

Social Incentives and the Preservation of Reputation in Public-Spirited Collective Action

Large-scale cooperation can often be manufactured out of small- scale relationships. People frequently cooperate in large-scale ventures in order to protect their reputations in everyday relationships, since an esteemed reputation has considerable instrumental value in a community. Moreover, regular social interaction is conducive not only to the develop ment of obligations and commitments, but also to the formation of other- regarding interests. These arguments are illustrated with a series of examples from the civil rights movement in the United States and other instances of collective action.

Political Protest and Civil Disobedience

Political protest refers to a multitude of methods used by individuals and groups within a political system to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Although protest can be registered through voting, letter writing, campaign contributions, participation in interest groups and political parties, and other traditional means, the term more commonly refers to those kinds of mass political activism that occur outside of conventional parliamentary channels, such as demonstrations and marches, labor stoppages, boycotts, and other methods that combine communication and persuasion, direct action, and noncooperation with political, economic, and social institutions.