ABC News and The Washington Post initiated their polling partnership on February 19, 1981, announcing an 18-month agreement to jointly produce news sur-veys on current issues and trends. More than 25 years, 475 surveys, and 500,000 individual interviews later, the partnership has proved an enduring one. Their first shared survey—known as the ABC/Post poll to view-ers of ABC News, and the Post/ABC survey to read-ers of the Post—focused on newly elected President Ronald Reagan’s tax- and budget-cutting plans. While their work over the years has covered attitudes on a broad range of social issues, ABC and the Post have focused their joint polling primarily on politics and elections.
The two organizations consult to develop survey subjects, oversee methodology and research, and write questionnaires; each independently analyzes and reports the resulting data. Sampling, field work, and tabulation for nearly all ABC/Post polls have been managed from the start by the former Chilton Research Services, sub-sequently acquired by the multi-national research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres.
In addition to full-length, multi-night surveys, ABC and the Post have shared other polls designed to meet news demands, including one-night surveys (e.g., immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001); daily pre-election tracking polls, in which the Post joined ABC as of 2000; and a weekly consumer confidence survey, in which the Post in 2005 joined an ABC effort ongoing since 1985.
The Post has been polling on its own since 1975, ABC since 1979. Their partnership was created by Dick Wald, senior vice president of ABC News, and his friend Ben Bradlee, the Post’s editor. Wald pitched the idea at lunch. Bradlee said, ‘‘Okay. You have a deal,’’ he recalled. ‘‘We just shook hands.
There was no contract, no paper, no anything else.’’
Jeffrey Alderman was longtime director of the survey for ABC, replaced in 1998 by Gary Langer.
Barry Sussman directed for the Post, replaced in 1987 by Richard Morin, who in turn was succeeded in 2006 by Jonathan Cohen, then ABC’s assistant poll-ing director.
The news organizations also conduct polls on their own and with other partners. In 2005, ABC won the first news Emmy Award to cite a public opinion poll, for its second national survey in Iraq, on which it partnered with the BBC, the German network ARD, and USA Today. ABC also won the 2006 Iowa/Gallup award and 2006 National Council on Public Polls award for its polling in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Post won the 2007 Iowa/Gallup award for its survey focus-ing on black men in America, a poll it conducted with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.
Their joint polling nonetheless has been the most consistent feature of both organizations’ efforts to
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cover the beat of public opinion. A search of the Factiva news archive for the 20 years through mid-2007 found 11,266 media references to ABC/Post polls, far surpassing references to any of the other ongoing news-sponsored public opinion surveys.
Gary Langer See also Media Polls; New York Times/CBS News Poll
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CCESSL
INESAn access line is a telecommunications link or tele-phone line connecting the central office or local switching center of a telephone company to the end user. Access lines are sometimes referred to as local routing numbers (LRNs), wireline loops, or switched access lines, and they do not include telephone num-bers used for wireless services. Access lines provide access to a residence or business over twisted-pair copper wire, coaxial cable, or optical fiber. The Federal Communications Commission reported that as of December 31, 2005, there were approximately 175.5 million switched access lines in the United States. Access lines are normally assigned in prefixes or 1000-blocks classified by Telcordia as POTS (‘‘Plain Old Telephone Service’’), and most frames used for generating telephone samples are restricted to POTS prefixes and 1000-blocks.
Approximately two thirds of all access lines con-nect to a residence, which suggests that two thirds of working numbers in a telephone sample should be residential. Many business access lines are in dedi-cated prefixes or banks and do not appear in a list-assisted random-digit dialing (RDD) telephone sam-ple. However, since a single business will frequently have multiple access lines, such as rollover lines, direct inward dial lines, fax lines, and modem lines, those access lines that are not in dedicated banks will appear in an RDD sample, substantially increasing the number of ineligible units.
A household also may have more than one access line. Over the years some households added additional access lines for children or home businesses. The increased use of home computers and residential fax machines in the 1990s further increased the number of residences with two or more access lines. Because multiple lines meant multiple probabilities of selection
for a household, telephone surveys have regularly included a series of questions designed to determine the number of access lines or telephone numbers in a household. Between 1988 and 2001, the percentage of households with one or more nonprimary lines grew from approximately 2% to 26%. Dedicated computer lines have caused problems for telephone survey researchers, since these lines typically ring but are never answered, resulting in unknown eligi-bility status. Consequently, survey questions designed to determine the number of access lines have had to be adjusted to determine the number of lines that would ever be answered. Since 2001, the number of residential access lines has been declining. Many households have given up second lines and moved from dial-up Internet service to broadband service.
Other households have opted to substitute wireless service for wireline service for some or all of their access lines. Current estimates suggest that, in 2007, 13% of households had only wireless telephone service.
Although an access line usually connects to a busi-ness or a residence, it may also connect to a pay phone, fax machine, or modem. Access lines can be used to obtain directory assistance, connect to Internet service providers, and order special programming from a cable or satellite service provider. An access line may not always connect to a specific location or device. Call forwarding allows a telephone call to be redirected to a mobile telephone or other telephone number where the desired called party is located. An access line can also be ported to another access line.
Local number portability is the ability of subscribers to keep their existing telephone numbers when chang-ing from one service provider to another. Portchang-ing requires two 10-digit numbers or access lines for each telephone number that is switched. One is the original subscriber number and the other is the number associ-ated with the switch belonging to the new carrier.
Finally, nascent Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies and ‘‘virtual’’ phone numbers allow an access line to connect to either a telephone or com-puter that may or may not be located at the physical address associated with that access line or switch.
Linda Piekarski See also Call Forwarding; Cell Phone Only Household;
Eligibility; Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Regulations; Hit Rate; Number Portability; Prefix 2 Access Lines
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CQUIESCENCER
ESPONSEB
IASAcquiescence response bias is the tendency for survey respondents to agree with statements regardless of their content.
Acquiescence response bias could influence any question in which the response options involve con-firming a statement, but it may be particularly problem-atic with agree–disagree questions. Although many guides on writing survey questions recommend avoid-ing agree–disagree questions, such questions are ubiqui-tous in survey instruments. An agree–disagree question asks respondents to report whether they agree or dis-agree with a statement. For example, respondents might be asked whether they agree or disagree with the state-ment, It is important for the president to be a person of high moral character. Acquiescence response bias is problematic because the interpretation of an ‘‘agree’’
response is very different if respondents are asked whether they agree or disagree with the posited state-ment than if they are asked whether they agree or dis-agree with the statement, ‘‘It is not important for the president to be a person of high moral character.’’
There are a number of explanations for acquies-cence response bias. One explanation is that acquie-scence response bias occurs partly due to social norms to be polite. Consistent with this, acquiescence response bias is stronger among cultures that put a high value on politeness and deference. Satisficing theory also provides an account for acquiescence response bias. Satisficing theory suggests that although survey researchers hope respondents will answer questions carefully and thoughtfully, respondents may not always be able or motivated to do so. Instead, they may shift their response strategies to minimize effort while pro-viding a satisfactory response to the survey question (known as satisficing). One such strategy involves agreeing with assertions made by the interviewer.
Satisficing theory also posits that satisficing is more likely when respondents’ ability and motivation is low and when question difficulty is high. Thus, acquies-cence response bias is likely to be strongest among respondents low in ability and motivation and for ques-tions that are more difficult, a perspective that is sup-ported by research studying acquiescence response bias.
There are also a number of strategies researchers use to avoid or control for acquiescence response bias.
One such strategy is to include multiple items to
measure a construct of interest, approximately half of which are worded so that the ‘‘agree’’ response indi-cates one position and the other half worded so that the
‘‘agree’’ response indicates the opposite position. For example, respondents might be asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement, ‘‘It is important for the president to be a person of high moral charac-ter,’’ and then later asked whether they agree or dis-agree with the statement, ‘‘It is not important for the president to be a person of high moral character.’’ If respondents exhibit acquiescence response bias and agree with both statements, their answers to these two questions cancel each other out.
There are at least three problems with this approach.
First, it requires that survey researchers use a large number of redundant questions. This strategy is ineffi-cient and it may be frustrating to respondents. Second, if researchers average responses across questions, this strategy results in ‘‘acquiescers’’ being given scores in the middle of the dimension, and it is not clear that this is appropriate or valid. Finally, as in the case discussed earlier, it sometimes results in respondents being asked whether they agree or disagree with a negative state-ment (e.g., ‘‘It is not important . . .’’). This may be confusing to respondents, as disagreeing with this state-ment involves a double negative (respondents are reporting that they disagree that it is not important).
This is a particular concern because not all languages treat double negatives in the same way, and agree–
disagree questions about negative statements may therefore be particularly confusing for respondents for whom English is not their primary language or if ques-tions are translated into other languages.
Another strategy for dealing with acquiescence response bias in agree–disagree questions involves rewriting all questions so that each question requires respondents to report directly about the dimension of interest. For example, the previous series of questions about the importance of the president’s moral charac-ter could be rewritten to read, ‘‘How important do you believe it is for the president to have a strong moral character: extremely important, very important, somewhat important, a little important, or not at all important?’’ This strategy also allows researchers to follow experts’ recommendations to avoid agree–
disagree questions.
Allyson Holbrook See also Likert Scale; Response Bias; Satisficing
Acquiescence Response Bias 3
Further Readings
Javeline, D. (1999). Response effects in polite cultures:
A test of acquiescence in Kazakhstan. Public Opinion Quarterly, 63, 1–28.
Johnson, T. P., Kulesa, P., Cho, Y. I. , & Shavitt, S. (2005).
The relation between culture and response styles:
Evidence from 19 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36, 264–277.
Krosnick, J. A. (1991). Response strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of attitude measures in surveys.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5, 213–236.
Narayan, S., & Krosnick, J. A. (1996). Education moderates some response effects in attitude measurement. Public Opinion Quarterly, 60, 58–88.
Schuman, H., & Presser, S. (1996). Questions and answers in attitude surveys: Experiments on question form, wording, and context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2004, October). Toward an understanding of cross-cultural differences in
acquiescence and extremity scoring.Paper presented at the Sheth Foundation/Sudman Symposium on Cross-Cultural Survey Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.