Collaborative Research: The American Mass Public in The 1930s and 1940s

近几十年来，对个人层面的公众舆论和行为的研究蓬勃发展。但是，由于缺乏高质量的、个人层面的数据，对20世纪50年代之前大众舆论动态的理解受到了破坏。从1935年到1945年进行了450多次全国民意调查。然而，这些调查并没有被社会科学界利用，因为它们不容易使用。这些数据通常包含大量的错误编码和其他错误。此外，这些调查采用了现在已经不可信的配额抽样程序。主要研究人员对数据集进行编码，并实施和传播适合分析这些历史民意数据的方法。通过应用使配额抽样数据可用的方法，本项目为美国和其他使用配额抽样方法的国家（如英国）的民意研究开辟了一个新的领域。恢复这些早期的民意数据有望阐明有关大众在政治体系中的作用的关键问题。这一时期的民意调查包含了大量有价值的项目，衡量人们对经济政策、第二次世界大战和种族关系的态度。主要研究人员使用对国际干预态度的民意调查数据来确定公众在第二次世界大战期间是如何指导和反应外交政策决定的，从而扩大了对公众舆论和战争的系统研究，将美国历史上最重大的国际冲突包括在内。主要研究人员还将国内政策的民意数据作为研究大众与新政的计划成就和局限性之间关系的资源。拟议活动产生的更广泛影响本项目为社会科学研究界提供了大量过去在很大程度上被忽视的民意数据。主要调查人员为1935年至1945年在美国进行的大约450项民意调查编制并制作了易于使用的计算机文件。这些文件可通过位于康涅狄格州斯托尔斯的罗珀中心获得。然而，这些数据几乎不可能在它们现有的条件下使用。主要研究人员对单个文件进行重新编码，准备文档，并提供一系列权重，以减轻配额控制抽样造成的偏差。调查人员还将个人调查汇编成一系列累积数据集。这些努力使更大的社会科学研究界更容易获得这些数据。该项目还承诺通过促进历史民意研究来扩大政治行为领域。它为学者群体提供了1950年以前丰富的个人层面的意见数据，使研究人员能够对一系列实质性的重要主题获得新的见解，例如美国人种族态度的变化和公众对早期美国福利国家的支持。

The study of individual-level public opinion and behavior has flourished in recentdecades. But understanding of the dynamics of mass opinion prior to the 1950s hasbeen undermined by the absence of high-quality, individual-level data. Over 450 nationalopinion polls were conducted from 1935-1945. However, these surveys have not beenexploited by the social science community because they are not easily usable. The dataoften contains numerous miscodings and other errors. In addition, the surveys employednow-discredited quota sampling procedures. The principal investigators recode thedatasets and implement and disseminate methods appropriate for analyzing this historicalpublic opinion data. By applying methods that make quota sample data usable, thisproject opens up a new realm for public opinion research in the U.S. and othercountries, such as England, that have used quota-sampling methods.Recovering this early opinion data promises to illuminate critical questionsconcerning the role of the mass public in the political system. The public opinion pollsfrom this time contain a plethora of valuable items measuring attitudes concerningeconomic policy, World War II, and racial relations. The principal investigators usethe polling data on attitudes toward international intervention to determine how the masspublic guided and reacted to foreign policy decisions during the Second World War,thereby expanding the systematic study of public opinion and war to include the mostsignificant international conflict in American history. The principal investigators alsouse the opinion data on domestic policy as a resource for examining the relationshipbetween the mass public and both the programmatic accomplishments and limitations ofthe New Deal.Broader Impacts Resulting from the Proposed ActivityThis project makes available to the social science research community a troveof public opinion data that has largely been ignored in the past. The principalinvestigators compile and produce readily usable computer files for roughly 450opinion polls undertaken in the United States from 1935 to 1945. These files areavailable through the Roper Center in Storrs, CT. However these data are almostimpossible to use in their existing condition. The principal investigators recode theindividual files, prepare documentation, and make available a series of weights tomitigate the biases resulting from quota-control sampling. The investigators alsocompile the individual polls into a series of cumulative datasets. These efforts makethe data more easily accessible to the larger social science research community.The project also promises to expand the field of political behavior by promotingthe study of historical public opinion. It provides to the community of scholars awealth of individual-level opinion data in the pre-1950 era, allowing researchers to gainnew insights into an array of substantively important topics, such as changes inAmericans' racial attitudes and public support for the early American welfare state.