{"id":2701,"date":"2010-02-12T09:09:36","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T13:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=2701"},"modified":"2010-02-12T11:35:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T15:35:40","slug":"careful-wording-of-poll-questions-significantly-influences-responses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2010\/02\/12\/careful-wording-of-poll-questions-significantly-influences-responses\/","title":{"rendered":"Careful wording of poll questions significantly influences responses"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, “duh!”<\/p>\n

But most people don’t know how much the choice of questions does<\/em> influence the outcome of polling. This<\/a> is a perfect example:<\/p>\n

\n

As the Obama administration proposes repealing the policy known as \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell,\u201d a new New York Times<\/em>\/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s less support, however, for allowing homosexuals to serve openly.<\/p>\n

Confused?<\/p>\n

The results highlight the importance of wording on the issue. In a test, half of the poll\u2019s respondents were asked their opinion on permitting \u201cgay men and lesbians\u201d to serve, and the other half were asked about permitting \u201chomosexuals\u201d to serve.<\/p>\n

The wording of the question proved to make a difference. Seven in 10 respondents said they favor allowing \u201cgay men and lesbians\u201d to serve in the military, including nearly 6 in 10 who said they should be allowed to serve openly. But support was somewhat lower among those who were asked about allowing \u201chomosexuals\u201d to serve, with 59 percent in favor, including 44 percent who support allowing them to serve openly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a very simple example. It can get a lot more sneaky:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, “duh!” But most people don’t know how much the choice of questions does influence the outcome of polling. This is a perfect example: As the Obama administration proposes repealing the policy known as \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell,\u201d a new New York Times\/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,5,53,13],"tags":[145,31,196,30,289],"class_list":["post-2701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-military","category-politics","category-usa","tag-airforce","tag-army","tag-lgbt","tag-navy","tag-polls"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-Hz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2702,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701\/revisions\/2702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}