Measuring death penalty support depends heavily on whether alternatives are offered.
Evidence
An anomaly among developed democratic nations, the United States finds itself a bedfellow with oppressive regimes that impose the death penalty (Spielman, 2012). However, within the United States, support for the death penalty is far from universal. Opinions can depend on how survey items are framed in public opinion polls. If people have only one choice of penalty for capital crimes, about 63% support the death penalty. However, when given alternatives, 45% favor lifetime imprisonment, and support for executions drops to 50%. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1838
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SEED: Plainly relevant to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — no, not that. Actually a strong survey-design / framing example worth writing up as a short piece on how poll wording manufactures consensus.
- XREF: Connects to framing effects literature in Kahneman/Tversky and to the general theme of how public opinion is constructed by measurement choices.
Related
- Survey framing dramatically changes measured death penalty support (similarity 0.91)
- Support for the death penalty is moral, not evidence-based for either side (similarity 0.83)
- US public support for the death penalty fell sharply from 2007 to 2012 (similarity 0.82)
- US death penalty support swung from opposition to 80% peak (similarity 0.81)
- Death penalty support splits sharply along party, gender, age, and race lines (similarity 0.80)
- The US is virtually alone among developed nations in still applying the death penalty (similarity 0.79)