Metsä vastaa miten huudetaan: kysymysten muotoilun vaikutus mielipiteisiin

Authors

• Olli Kangas

Abstract

In opinion research, a more or less explicit starting point has been that people do have stable preferences that are revealed in opinion surveys. However, the view of human beings as unitary actors can be challenged. People do not have only one stable bundle of surveys opinions in their heads but various bundles consisting of different and struggling opinions. Which of these will be chosen depends on various situational factors. The wording of a survey question may be one such factor. This study, based on survey data on 1 117 Finns, shows that even minor changes in the wording of questions produce substantial effects on opinions. By properly referring to altruistic and selfish motives it is possible to manipulate mass opinion. If the framing matters, what, then, is the relevance of opinion surveys? Does the framing effect undermine the value of polls? Not necessarily. The framing effect complicates and at best makes the study of mass opinion even more important and facinating by compelling the analysts to include political power, elite discourses and hegemonic struggles in their analyses.