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Political Behavior

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13-10-2016 | Original Paper

Is the Left-Right Scale a Valid Measure of Ideology?

Individual-Level Variation in Associations with “Left” and “Right” and Left-Right Self-Placement

Authors: Paul C. Bauer, Pablo Barberá, Kathrin Ackermann, Aaron Venetz

Published in: Political Behavior | Issue 3/2017

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Abstract

In order to measure ideology, political scientists heavily rely on the so-called left-right scale. Left and right are, however, abstract political concepts and may trigger different associations among respondents. If these associations vary systematically with other variables this may induce bias in the empirical study of ideology. We illustrate this problem using a unique survey that asked respondents open-ended questions regarding the meanings they attribute to the concepts “left” and “right”. We assess and categorize this textual data using topic modeling techniques. Our analysis shows that variation in respondents’ associations is systematically related to their self-placement on the left-right scale and also to variables such as education and respondents’ cultural background (East vs. West Germany). Our findings indicate that the interpersonal comparability of the left-right scale across individuals is impaired. More generally, our study suggests that we need more research on how respondents interpret various abstract concepts that we regularly use in survey questions.

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In their seminal work “The Psychology of Survey Response” Tourangeau et al. (2000, p. 45) dedicate a whole chapter to the general problem (see Chap. 2.4.2) and discuss the study by Belson (1981). Belson (1981) reports that only 8 % understood the question as intended. Whereas some respondents associated “children” with “kids 8 years old or younger”, “others understood children as those 19–20 years old or younger” (Tourangeau et al. 2000, p. 45).

See the ANES 2000 pilot study open question on generalized trust. Uslaner (2002) finds that this question fares better than two other questions on fairness and helpfulness of Rosenberg’s faith in people scale (Rosenberg 1956).

Google Ngram Viewer seems to indicate that widespread use really picked up in 1970.

Person A might have a small car in mind whereas person B might think of a Hummer which may affect their evaluation of e.g. the impact of cars on the environment.

It has long been argued that differences between scale points (e.g. the step from 9 to 10) may be interpreted differently by different respondents. Quantifiers on response scales such as “totally agree” also represent vague concepts and might be used differently by different respondents. For instance, Tourangeau et al. (2000, p. 47) and King et al. (2004a) discuss this problem and potential solutions. The problem we discuss here is similar in nature, however, we want to emphasize the role played by more abstract concepts such “democracy” or “left”. Especially, in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research the error induced by the latter concepts should be more relevant.

We only illustrate the impact on measurement for different associations with “left”. The same problem exists of course exists for “right” which is the other end of the scale.

This might also hold for politically interest or sophistication. More interested and sophisticated individuals are assumed to be aware of the multidimensionality of the policy space and the complexity of political concepts. Therefore they might refer to abstract ideologies rather than to specific policy fields or the position of a specific party. It is also likely that partisans of different parties have different associations with “left” and “right” which might affect the relationship between partisanship and ideology as measured through left-right self-placement (see Inglehart and Klingemann 1976). For instance, supporters of left-wing parties might have more positive associations with “left” than supporters of right-wing parties.

As we will see below a large percentage of respondents did not give any associations with “left” and “right” when being probed in our study.

In terms of overall validity it is clear that a survey question should match a researcher’s conceptual definition (Sturgis and Smith 2010, p. 89). The problems of interpersonal incomparability discussed here may, however, render a seemingly valid measure of a scientific concept invalid.

In the first sample stage municipalities (Gemeinden) in Western Germany and municipalities in Eastern Germany were selected with a probability proportional to their number of adult residents; in the second sample stage individual persons were selected at random from the municipal registers of residents. Targeted individuals who did not have adequate knowledge of German to conduct the interview were treated as systematic unit non-responses. The method of data collection were personal interviews with standardized questionnaire (CAPI—computer assisted personal interviewing) [see http://www.gesis.org/en/allbus/study-profiles/2008/ (12/28/2015)].

A different approach would be to query their associations before letting them locate themselves on the left-right scale. However, here we want to investigate how respondents deal with the left-right scale, and thus we consider this question order to be more adequate for that purpose. Another technique to reveal associations during the answering process could be the think aloud technique. Note, however, that this method comes with certain weaknesses suggested by Tourangeau et al. (2000, pp. 44–45).

In additional analyses (not reported here) we investigated the missings (don’t know, no information) for a set of more concrete closed-ended policy questions in the same survey. The number of missings seems to increase with the difficulty of the question. Morever, don’t knows regarding associations with left/right seem to predict those missings, albeit the effects are not very strong.

As we demonstrate in Figs. 15 and 16 in the Appendix, these results also hold even if we do not rely on this topic modeling technique and use instead simple word counts. This analysis shows that individuals located on different extremes of the left-right scale associate very different words to describe these two concepts. To facilitate reading these figures, in Table 4 in the Appendix we provide the top ten words on each extreme of the x-axis that were mentioned 5 or more times.

Preliminary analyses (without controls) not reported here but included in the replication files seem to indicate that associations with left and right are also linked to party left-right placements.

Importantly, however, our results also matter for questions that ask respondents’ to locate others (such as parties) on the left-right scale.

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Title: Is the Left-Right Scale a Valid Measure of Ideology?
Individual-Level Variation in Associations with “Left” and “Right” and Left-Right Self-Placement
Authors: Paul C. Bauer
Pablo Barberá
Kathrin Ackermann
Aaron Venetz
Publication date: 13-10-2016
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Political Behavior / Issue 3/2017
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9368-2

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