ISSUE INVOLVEMENT AND RESPONSE EFFECTS IN PUBLIC-OPINION SURVEYS

This research tests the widespread assumption that response effects due to variations in question form, wording, or context will be greatest among respondents who are least involved with an issue. A meta-analysis of results from 15 split-ballot experiments conducted over a five-year period indicates that the response effects of using counterarguments or middle alternatives in survey questions are significantly larger, as would be expected, among respondents who are less involved with a given issue than among those who are highly involved with it. But the effects of question order and response order appear to be largely unrelated to how involved a respondent is with a particular issue. Issue involvement, then, appears to specify some response effects, but not others. © 1990 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.