Ronald B. Rapoport

Sex Differences in Attitude Expression: A Generational Explanation

Females have consistently shown higher DK response rates than males in surveys. Using the 1972 Center for Political Studies National Election Study, this sex difference is shown to be a largely generational phenomenon which is much greater among older than younger respondents. It also declines at higher levels of political knowledge and interest. Finally, using the CPS 1972-76 national panel, DK response rate shows high test-retest reliability. Ronald B. Rapoport is an Associate Professor of Government, College of William and Mary. The data for this study were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Social and Political Research. Neither the Consortium nor the original collectors of the data are responsible for the analyses or interpretations presented here. The author would like to acknowledge the insightful suggestions of Jere Bruner on this project, and the helpful comments of Alan Abramowitz, Fritz Gaenslen, John McGlennon, Patricia Rapoport, and the anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this article. Public Opinion Quar-terly Vol. 46.86-96 ? 1982 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/82/0046-86/

The Sex Gap in Political Persuading: Where the "Structuring Principle" Works*

2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.127 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:10:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SEX DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDE EXPRESSION 87 data in their own right, and reveal something important about respon-

Candidate Support in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: The Case of Iowa in 1984

Sex differences in political behavior have decreased significantly over the last 25 years. One of the few remaining differences is in the area of trying to persuade others how to vote. This paper explains this difference from a socialization perspective, arguing that the greater reluctance of adolescent females to express attitudes is a precursor of the greater reluctance of adult females both to express attitudes and to try to persuade others how to vote. The success of this explanation shows that the structuring principle can be usefully applied if the link between preadult and adult attitudes and behavior is sufficiently well-specified. As a field, political socialization has been severely hampered by its failure to address directly the question of how preadult political orientations are linked to adult attitudes and behaviors. Although some researchers (e.g., Easton and Dennis, 1969) have theorized about the impact of childhood on important adult political variables such as diffuse support, they have implicitly assumed, rather than tested, the proposition that childhood attitudes persist and structure later attitudes. The theoretical importance of such tests is obvious. They would specify the conditions under which, and the mechanisms through which, early learning affects adult political variables. We could then specify and study those aspects and periods of the political socialization process which are the most significant for adult attitudes and behaviors. One of the first critics to emphasize the importance of the child-adult link was David Marsh (1971). Marsh, however, had no data with which to test this link, and the problem continued to be ignored for the most part. In fact, Donald Searing and his colleagues (Searing, Schwartz, and Lind, 1973; Searing, Wright, and Rabinowitz, 1976), writing in the 1970s, were unable to find any coherent model of the ways in which early learning either struc

Candidate Traits and Voter Inferences: An Experimental Study

We analyze three explanations of candidate choice in presidential nomination campaigns: (1) a preference model, which contends that nomination choice is based on the ideological, issue, or candidate preferences of the voter; (2) a candidate-chances explanation that argues choice is motivated by the chances candidates have of winning the nomination or the general election; and (3) an expected utility model that includes both preferences and candidate chances by discounting ideological, issue, and candidate-trait preferences by the perceived chances each candidate has of winning in November. We test these explanations on samples of Democratic caucus attenders and state convention delegates from Iowa in 1984. The expected utility model most successfully predicts candidate choice in both samples. Even with appropriate controls for candidate affect, both preference and candidate chances measures have significant independent effects on candidate choice. Our analysis suggests that the interests of individual nomination participants and party organizations may not be as disparate as many critics of the contemporary process believe.

Sex and the Caucus Participant: The Gender Gap and Presidential Nominations

This paper examines to what extent, and in what ways, voters are willing to go beyond the information given--when that information consists of either a candidates personal traits or his issue positions--to make broader candidate assessments. Based on an experiment in which students were given either personal trait or issue information about candidates for president, we find strong evidence for voter inferences from traits to issues and vice versa (although there is greater inference from issues than from traits). Finally, we find that, although inferences are frequently made, they are often idiosyncratic. Only in particular cases (i.e., relating candidates compassion with his support of government providing jobs), do different types of respondents make the same inferences (a finding which is also borne out by the 1984 NES).

The Impact of Child Obesity on Active Parental Consent in School-Based Survey Research on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity.

Most analysis of the gender gap has focused on the mass electorate. But over the past 20 years, women have also come to play a much more important role in presidential nominations in both parties. Looking at caucus participants across parties, we find sex differences greater than those discovered at the mass level. Female caucus participants are significantly more liberal than males. Within each party sex differences are strong for womens issues and foreign policy issues; and for both sets of issues the differences are greater within the Republican party. Sex differences hold up with controls for demographics as well. The strong findings on sex differences in attitudes fail to translate into sex differences in candidate choice. Confronted with a very complicated political environment, both males and females choose candidates on largely nonideological bases.

Talking Politics on Facebook Network Centrality and Political Discussion Practices in Social Media

Previous studies have shown that active consent procedures result in sampling bias in surveys dealing with adolescent risk behaviors such as cigarette smoking and illicit drug use. To examine sampling bias from active consent procedures when the survey topic pertains to childhood obesity and associated health behaviors, the authors pair data obtained from both active and passive consent procedures. The authors find that parents of children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight are significantly less likely to give active consent. In addition, parents of children enrolled in lower grades are more reluctant to consent to participate.

A model for disaggregating political change

This study examines the relationship between political discussion on Facebook and social network location. It uses a survey name generator to map friendship ties between students at a university and to calculate their centralities in that network. Social connectedness in the university network positively predicts more frequent political discussion on Facebook. But in political discussions, better connected individuals do not capitalize equally on the potential influence that stems from their more central network locations. Popular individuals who have more direct connections to other network members discuss politics more often but in politically safer interactions that minimize social risk, preferring more engaged discussion with like-minded others and editing their privacy settings to guard their political disclosures. Gatekeepers who facilitate connections between more pairs of otherwise disconnected network members also discuss politics more frequently, but are more likely to engage in risk-tolerant discussion practices such as posting political updates or attempting political persuasion. These novel findings on social connectedness extend research on offline political discussion into the social media sphere, and suggest that as social network research proliferates, analysts should consider how various types of network location shape political behavior.

It's Perot Stupid! The Legacy of the 1992 Perot Movement in the Major-Party System, 1994–2000

We present a model for identifying the components of aggregate change in an electorate between two points in time. When the electorate is constant in size, change in the mean opinion disaggregates into two components: conversion among those who continue to participate in the electorate (Stayers), and replacement of those who drop out of the electorate at Time1 (Dropouts) by Newcomers to the electorate at Time2. We add to this simple formulation the possibility of variation in the size of the electorate. When an electorate expands, the model includes a mobilization term to accommodate the fact that there are more Newcomers at Time2 than Dropouts at Time1. When an electorate shrinks in size, the demobilization term reflects the fact that Newcomers as a group are smaller than Dropouts. The model includes appropriate weights for each component so that the change in opinion (or any other aggregate characteristic in the electorate) can be allocated across the three components. We apply the model to Iowa caucus attenders in both parties between 1984 and 1988, and we suggest that the model can be also productively applied to a variety of contexts besides nomination politics, where fluctuations in the size of electorates are significant.

Partisanship Change in a Candidate-Centered Era

By any standard, the 2000 presidential election was close. It was close in the Electoral College, where Bush prevailed by the slimmest majority (271–266), and it was close in the national popular vote, where Gore edged Bush by about 540,000 votes in an electorate of more than 100 million. Needless to say, the 2000 election was also astonishingly close in individual states like Florida, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Oregon.