Melanie C. Green

The psychology of the unthinkable : Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals

Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egalitarians who inadvertently used such base rates tried to reaffirm their fair-mindedness. Experiment 5 revealed that Christian fundamentalists were most likely to reject heretical counterfactuals that applied everyday causal schemata to Biblical narratives and to engage in moral cleansing after merely contemplating such possibilities. Although the results fit the sacred-value-protection model (SVPM) better than rival formulations, the SVPM must draw on cross-cultural taxonomies of relational schemata to specify normative boundaries on thought.

Telephone versus Face-to-Face Interviewing of National Probability Samples with Long Questionnaires: Comparisons of Respondent Satisficing and Social Desirability Response Bias

The last 50 years have seen a gradual replacement of face-to-face interviewing with telephone interviewing as the dominant mode of survey data collection in the United States. But some of the most expensive and large-scale nationally funded, long-term survey re- search projects involving national area-probability samples and long questionnaires retain face-to-face interviewing as their mode. In this article, we propose two ways in which shifting such surveys to random digit dialing (RDD) telephone interviewing might affect the quality of data acquired, and we test these hypotheses using data from three na- tional mode experiments. Random digit dialing telephone respondents were more likely to satisfice (as evidenced by no-opinion responding, nondifferentiation, and acquiescence), to be less cooperative and en- gaged in the interview, and were more likely to express dissatisfaction with the length of the interview than were face-to-face respondents, despite the fact that the telephone interviews were completed more quickly than the face-to-face interviews. Telephone respondents were also more suspicious about the interview process and more likely to present themselves in socially desirable ways than were face-to-face respondents. These findings shed light on the nature of the survey re- sponse process, on the costs and benefits associated with particular survey modes, and on the nature of social interaction generally.

The Impact of "No Opinion" Response Options on Data Quality: Non-Attitude Reduction or an Invitation to Satisfice?

According to many seasoned survey researchers, offering a no-opinion option should reduce the pressure to give substantive re- sponses felt by respondents who have no true opinions. By contrast, the survey satisficing perspective suggests that no-opinion options may dis- courage some respondents from doing the cognitive work necessary to report the true opinions they do have. We address these arguments using data from nine experiments carried out in three household surveys. Attraction to no-opinion options was found to be greatest among re- spondents lowest in cognitive skills (as measured by educational at- tainment), among respondents answering secretly instead of orally, for questions asked later in a survey, and among respondents who devoted little effort to the reporting process. The quality of attitude reports ob- tained (as measured by over-time consistency and responsiveness to a question manipulation) was not compromised by the omission of no- opinion options. These results suggest that inclusion of no-opinion op- tions in attitude measures may not enhance data quality and instead may preclude measurement of some meaningful opinions.

FICTIONAL NARRATIVES CHANGE BELIEFS : REPLICATIONS OF PRENTICE, GERRIG, AND BAILIS (1997) WITH MIXED CORROBORATION

We report three exact replications of experiments aimed at illuminating how fictional narratives influence beliefs (Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997). Students read fictional stories that contained weak, unsupported assertions and which took place either at their home school or at an away school. Prentice et al. found that students were influenced to accept the assertions, even those blatantly false, but that this effect on beliefs was limited to the away-school setting. We questioned the limiting of the narrative effect to remote settings. Our studies consistently reproduced the first finding, heightened acceptance of statements occurring in the conversations of narrative protagonists, but we failed to reproduce the moderating effect of school location. In an attempt to understand these discrepancies, we measured likely moderating factors such as readers’ need for cognition and their extent of scrutiny of the narratives.

Bridging a Disciplinary Divide: The Summer Institute in Political Psychology *

Like many other social scientists, political scientists often incorporate theories and findings from other academic disciplines into their research. In fact, many research questions posed by political scientists can be answered adequately only by linking political science theories with insights from other disciplines. How, for example, do voters decide which candidate to support on election day? We could answer this question by focusing only on the economic interests of the voters. Our answer