A Panel Study of the Effects of Long-Term Unemployment upon Individualist Values

长期失业对个人主义价值观影响的小组研究

• 批准号: 1102599
• 负责人: Philip Paolino
• 金额: $ 10.96万
• 依托单位: University of North Texas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-04-15 至 2013-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1102599&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Panel; Study; Effects; Long; Term

This project investigates the effect of personal experience upon core American values. Many scholars concur that core values provide a stable foundation for people's attitudes on public policy. The argument is that such values as individualism and equality are formed early in life and are relatively resistant to change. The question remains whether people's values might change when their personal experiences and knowledge of others' experiences challenge beliefs at the heart of those values.The intellectual merit of this project is rooted in its examination of the effect of chronic unemployment upon people's attitudes toward the value of hard work, which lies at the heart of economic individualism. The context for the project is the fact that so many US citizens are affected by the current economic conditions, especially that of long-term unemployment. This project, informed by extant scholarly work, posits that the personal circumstance of unemployment, combined with information about others' problems and the severity of the economic downturn, should affect people's beliefs about the extent to which they have control of their economic well-being and their own sense of satisfaction, which in turn should reduce their support for one core value of American politics, individualism--that is, the belief that people should get ahead on their own hard work. This study builds on the investigator's prior work in order to assess the effect of unemployment, as well as the general economic downturn, on changes in people's individualist attitudes. This project will re-interview, for two additional waves, respondents from the investigator's September 2010 survey of the general population, with an oversample of unemployed respondents. That first study collected information about respondents' attitudes toward individualism and equality, as well as measures of their employment status, length of unemployment, their information about others' unemployment, and their attitudes about their recent financial situation and future prospects. By re-interviewing these respondents, this project will allow for an examination of any change in respondents' values, the nature of those changes, and the extent to which personal experiences are related to those changes as the nation's economy improves and people return to work. This study makes several broader contributions. It will create a publicly available dataset of special interest to scholars studying the impact of significant personal experiences such as unemployment upon political attitudes. The study will also have policy implications for determining, for example, whether extending unemployment benefits, which can ameliorate unemployment's negative consequences, has an effect upon public support for social welfare policies. Perhaps most broadly, the project enhances understanding of the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The lessons it offers hold interest for scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike.

这个项目调查了个人经历对美国核心价值观的影响。许多学者一致认为，核心价值观为人们对公共政策的态度提供了稳定的基础。他们的论点是，个人主义和平等等价值观是在生命早期形成的，相对来说，它们对变化具有抵抗力。问题在于，当人们的个人经历和对他人经历的了解挑战了这些价值观核心的信念时，他们的价值观是否会发生变化。这个项目的智力价值植根于它对长期失业对人们对努力工作价值的态度的影响的研究，这是经济个人主义的核心。该项目的背景是，如此多的美国公民受到当前经济状况的影响，特别是长期失业的情况。在现有学术著作的启发下，该项目认为，失业的个人情况，再加上有关他人问题和经济衰退严重程度的信息，应该会影响人们对自己对经济福祉的控制程度和自己的满足感的信念，这反过来应该会减少他们对美国政治的一个核心价值观--个人主义--的支持--即人们应该在自己的努力工作中取得成功的信念。这项研究建立在调查者先前工作的基础上，以评估失业以及普遍的经济低迷对人们个人主义态度变化的影响。该项目将对调查员2010年9月的一般人口调查中的受访者进行两次再访谈，并对失业的受访者进行过抽样。第一项研究收集了受访者对个人主义和平等的态度，以及他们的就业状况、失业时间、他们关于其他人失业的信息，以及他们对最近财务状况和未来前景的态度的信息。通过重新采访这些受访者，该项目将允许检查受访者价值观的任何变化，这些变化的性质，以及随着国家经济改善和人们重返工作岗位，个人经历与这些变化相关的程度。这项研究做出了几个更广泛的贡献。它将创建一个公开的数据集，供研究失业等重大个人经历对政治态度的影响的学者们特别感兴趣。例如，这项研究还将对确定延长失业救济金是否会影响公众对社会福利政策的支持产生政策影响。失业救济金可以缓解失业的负面后果。或许更广泛地说，该项目增强了人们对这场自大萧条以来最严重衰退的理解。它提供的课程引起了学者、政策制定者和公民的兴趣。