scholarly journals Correcting Citizens’ Misperceptions about non-Western Immigrants: Corrective Information, Interpretations, and Policy Opinions

Author(s):  
Frederik Juhl Jørgensen ◽  
Mathias Osmundsen

Abstract Can corrective information change citizens’ misperceptions about immigrants and subsequently lead to favorable immigration opinions? While prior studies from the USA document how corrections about the size of minority populations fail to change citizens’ immigration-related opinions, they do not examine how other facts that speak to immigrants’ cultural or economic dependency rates can influence immigration policy opinions. To extend earlier work, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample of Danes. We randomly expose participants to information about non-Western immigrants’ (1) welfare dependency rate, (2) crime rate, and (3) proportion of the total population. We find that participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, but reinterpret the information in a highly selective fashion, ultimately failing to change their policy preferences.

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bozick

Abstract Background Self-rated health (SRH) is one of the most commonly used summary measures of overall health and well-being available to population scientists due to its ease of administration in large-scale surveys and to its efficacy in predicting mortality. This paper assesses the extent to which SRH is affected by its placement before or after questions about bodyweight on a survey, and whether differences in placement on the questionnaire affects SRH’s predictive validity. Methods I assessed the validity of SRH in predicting the risk of mortality by comparing outcomes of sample members who were asked to rate their health before reporting on their bodyweight (the control group) and sample members who were asked to rate their health after reporting on their bodyweight (the treatment group). Both the control and treatment group were randomly assigned via an experiment administered as a module in a nationally representative sample of adults in the USA in 2019 (N = 2523). Results The odds of reporting a more favorable appraisal of health are 30% lower for sample members who were in the treatment group when compared with the control group. Additionally, the SRH of treatment group members is significantly associated with their risk of mortality, while the SRH of control group members is not. Conclusion The findings from this study suggest that for researchers to maximize the utility of SRH, closer attention needs to be paid to the context of the survey within which it asked. SRH is highly sensitive to the questions that precede it, and this sensitivity may in turn mischaracterize the true health of the population that the survey is intending to measure.


Author(s):  
Moyassar Al-Taie ◽  
Michael Lane ◽  
Aileen Cater-Steel

This chapter explores the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). A detailed review of the existing literature traces the evolution of this role and highlights its characteristics and configurations. CIO role effectiveness can be described in terms of three demand-side roles: strategist, relationship architect, integrator, and three supply-side roles: educator, information steward, and utility provider. To explore the configuration of roles of CIOs in Australia, a large-scale survey of CIOs was conducted. The Australian results, based on 174 responses, are compared with those from similar studies in USA. The top priority for the Australian CIO was information steward, ensuring organizational data quality and security and recruiting and retaining IT skilled staff. In comparison, the first priority for the USA CIOs was utility provider - building and sustaining solid, dependable, and responsive IT infrastructure services. This study's findings have implications for CIO career development and recruitment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bischof ◽  
Roman Senninger

Public discourse is increasingly concerned with the way that politicians communicate. This is fuelled by a new generation of politicians, such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and representatives of populist parties, who evidently communicate less sophisticated than mainstream politicians. However, the question of whether and how linguistic styles affect citizens is largely unexplored. We argue that both citizens and politicians might benefit from simple political communication. First, mechanically, citizens should have a better chance to understand political positions if political discourse is less sophisticated. Second, linguistic simplicity can function as a heuristic for citizens by signaling that politicians are among the "people" instead of being part of the "elites". We test our arguments using a pre-registered three-wave vignette survey experiment in Germany (N = 5,800). Our findings show that simple messages (as compared to sophisticated messages) indeed increase citizens' comprehension of political positions. Moreover, we find that citizens use language sophistication as a heuristic to fill informational gaps about politicians. Politicians who communicate less sophisticated are perceived to have rather modest socioeconomic backgrounds. As a result, the use of simple language can benefit politicians' claims to belong to the people instead of the elite. Our findings add important new insights to our understanding of the effects of political communication in contemporary democracies.


Author(s):  
Richard Traunmüller ◽  
Marc Helbling

Abstract Focusing on one specific aspect of immigrant political integration—how authorities deal with their political right to demonstrate—we show in a large-scale survey experiment that liberal policy decisions permitting demonstrations lead to a polarization in attitudes: citizens who agree with a permission become more sympathetic, while those in favor of banning become more critical of immigrants. This notion of opinion backlash to policy decisions adds a new perspective to the literature on immigration attitudes which has either assumed a congruence between public opinion and policy or ignored political sources of anti-immigrant sentiment altogether. By exploring the unintended consequences of policy decisions, we provide an alternative view and demonstrate the inherent dilemma of balancing citizen opinion and minority rights.


2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Anne Lee ◽  
Ellen Garbarino ◽  
Dawn Lerman

PurposeTo examine how people from countries that vary in uncertainty avoidance (UA) use information about product uncertainty when evaluating products.Design/methodology/approachTwo studies were conducted that vary in methodology, sampling and analysis. First, an experiment was designed to manipulate product uncertainty through the use of country of origin (COO) quality‐stereotypes. It was administered to university students from a diverse range of countries, all studying in the USA. Next, data from a large‐scale survey of consumers from ten countries was submitted to hierarchical binary regression analyses to include variables at the country and individual level.FindingsThe studies support an interaction between product uncertainty (PU) and cultural UA on quality perceptions and behavioural intentions. Consumers from high UA countries evaluated high PU offerings less positively and held weaker behavioural intentions than those from low UA countries, but for low PU offerings, no difference was found. The effect of UA was reduced for people with more experience and those who were younger.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough we isolated the effects of UA from other cultural and individual level variables, it would be useful to directly cross individualism with UA in an experimental design, as these two variables are highly correlated.Practical implicationsThis study suggests products with higher levels of PU will have more opportunity to prove themselves in low uncertainty cultures.Originality/valueThis study should be valuable for marketing managers devising rollout strategies for products with higher levels of PU or weaker quality stereotypes.


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