Aggregate time-series polling data cannot reveal how scandal affects individual citizens’ thinking

Evidence

In the dominant approach, time series statistical methods are applied to aggregated public opinion data. The typical model includes a handful of macroeconomic measures, an indicator or two to reflect the costs of war, and a miscellaneous set of measures to stand for crises, scandals, domestic unrest, presidential initiatives, and more. Although this approach can point with authority to the important national and international events that drive change in popular support in the aggregate, it cannot tell us about the dynamics of individual change. The aggregate time series results may tell us that scandal weakens the president’s support with the public but not how scandal affects the thinking of individual citizens. Other than making the analytically convenient but highly unrealistic claim of homogeneity (that all citizens react in exactly the same way), the time series work is silent on what, exactly, citizens are doing. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1566 (#expands, via linked claim)

Priming provides an empirically grounded, psychologically plausible account of how individuals form and revise their views of presidential performance. Priming therefore aspires to complement the dominant tradition in research on support for the president, which applies time series methods to estimate the impact of national and international events on change in the public support. This research has been enormously informative about the aggregate effects of such events while revealing little about the diversity among citizens’ reactions that seem certain to underlie change and stability in the aggregate. From such research we know a great deal about how the public as a whole will respond to a change in unemployment or to a dramatic international crisis but virtually nothing about which citizens are most likely to increase their support for the president, which are likely to decrease their support, and which are likely to be unmoved. The literature is even less prepared to tell us why different citizens respond differently to the same event. Priming provides a general framework to answer such questions. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1625 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empirical attitudinal surveys cannot reveal revolutionary prospects. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 230; Aggregate polling models cannot reveal how individual citizens change their views — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1566; Aggregate time-series research hides which citizens shift presidential support and why — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1625 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Aggregate polling models cannot reveal how individual citizens change their views #expands (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1566
• Aggregate time-series research hides which citizens shift presidential support and why #expands (0.92) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1625