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Some Relations between Events and Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

James C. Davies
James C. Davies
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The assumption that the general public reacts rationally to its changing political and economic environment is basic to democratic theory; for if rational reaction to the complex of events having broad political significance is not general but is limited to a minority of the public, then the rational few must govern the irrational many. Yet this democratic assumption has been little explored empirically. Protagonists of government responsible to the general public assert it; antagonists deny it—both groups basing their judgment on the common sense of everyday observation or on the rigorous a priori requirements of their own political theories, values, and ideologies or of those of such theorists as Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson.

The assumption cannot be examined indirectly and inferentially from analysis of reactions to nonpolitical stimuli. It is of no political consequence that an individual sensibly responds to a sharp object that touches his body by getting out of the way. It is of no political consequence as such that the hungry individual responds by seeking or fantasying food. It is of political consequence when individuals respond to high prices of food or to the threat of war or the prospect of peace by forming attitudes which are or may become the basis for political action.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1952 , pp. 777 - 789
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1952

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References

1 By “sensibly” or “rationally” we mean here that the general public does shift its attitudes as a consequence of events, in a direction that is consistent with logical inference from the event to its consequences. This does not imply that the public's inferences are correct but that they are arrived at by a process basically the same as that used to make any inference from observed or assumed phenomena. In this first hypothesis we are making the basic assumption that the thinking processes of the general public exist and—though doubtless less rigorous—are qualitatively no different from those of the scientist or the logician.

2 See Campbell, A. and Metzner, C., Public Use of the Library (Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1950), p. 8 (Table 3)Google Scholar, p. 10 (Table 4), and p. 24 (Table 12).

3 This latter 30% of the total sample is used for the present study in order to avoid any possible distortions caused by the first shock reaction to the break in the market or by the relatively small number of interviews taken immediately after the slump. When the 600 interviews so taken are broken into subgroups, the instability of the small numbers is such as to make impracticable any comparisons based on income, education, occupation, etc.

4 Of all respondents, interviewed before the slump, 50% expected prices to go up, and of those interviewed 10 days or more after the slump, only 15% expected them to go up. Sixteen per cent expected prices to go down before the slump, and 39% expected them to go down after. The remaining respondents gave answers indicating that they thought prices would stay the same, or they qualified their answers in other ways. See “1948 Survey of Consumer Finances,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, Vol. 34, p. 643 (06, 1948)Google Scholar. In tables throughout the present article, those who gave other than “up” or “down” answers are excluded.

5 Professionals (doctors, teachers, accountants, etc.), self-employed, managers, other white collar workers, skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workers, farm laborers, retired, unemployed, and housewives.

6 The survey questions here examined were:

1) “Do you think in the next few months our relations with Russia are going to get worse, better, or what?

2) “Do you think our troubles with other countries are mainly our own fault or not?

3) “Do you think the people running our affairs with other countries have done a pretty good job or do you think that some other people could have done better?

4) “Do you think the United States should send troops to help protect Europe against Communism?

5) “Do you think we did the right thing in getting into the fighting in Korea last summer or should we have stayed out?

6) “And what do you expect these prices of household items and clothing will do during the next twelve months or so—stay where they are, go up, or go down?

7) “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way the United States has been acting towards other countries?

8) “In the disagreements between President Truman and General MacArthur about how to carry on the war in Korea, who do you think was most nearly right?”