Formal Theory and Value Judgments
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University of California
Publication date: 2014-01-07
Polish Sociological Review 2013;184(4):409-430
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
When we assume that a survey reveals respondents’ true attitudes we tacitly assume that the
subjects understood what we are asking them about and that they had no incentive to be untruthful. In
typical studies none of the two assumptions holds. Subjects are asked questions that use undefined terms
and they are asked about issues they have no incentive to answer truthfully. Here we argue that a way to
solve the two problems lies in constructing a formal theory of an attitude in such a way that an attitude can
be derived from the answers yet when answering the questions subjects cannot possibly know that their
responses reveal anything about their attitude and, hence, they have no incentive to answer insincerely.We
briefly discuss a study that has the desirable properties necessary for the proper design.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The support of the Center for the Study of Democracy (Kaminski) is acknowledged.