Question Design, Response Set and the Measurement of Left/Right Thinking in Survey Research

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Abstract
This note considers the possibility that the format of the interview schedules in the 1965 and 1968 national election surveys may have influenced respondents' ratings of the major political parties on the seven-point left-wing/right-wing scale. It argues that the use of 12 additional scales, defined by more widely understood adjectives such as good/bad and powerful/weak, reduced the willingness of respondents to admit their ignorance and increased their use of the midpoint on this scale. The instructions in 1968 also urged respondents to use the scales even if they were unsure of their meanings. Some idea of the magnitude of these effects is provided by the 1979 survey in which only the left/right scale was employed. Eliminating these artifacts in 1979 contributed to a picture of a party system that was more clearly differentiated and polarized along the left/right continuum.

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