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A critical reexamination of a widely cited analysis of mass belief systems by political scientist, N. Nie & K. Andersen ("Mass Belief Systems Revisited: Political Change and Attitude Structure," Journal of Politics, 1974, 36, 540-591). Serious questions are raised concerning the validity of the salience-of-politics hypothesis that has been frequently invoked to account for the dramatic growth of political attitude consistency in the American electorate since the 1950's. By reconceptualizing the consistency or "constraint" construct in line with its original ideological underpinnings--as formulated by political sociologist, P. Converse (see SA 0850/C4988), in this thesis on mass belief systems--& by carrying out a more refined secondary analysis of data from the 1964, 1968, & 1972 Mich national election studies, a case is made for rising levels of educational attainment as the major factor explaining long-term changes in the structural characteristics of American political ideology. A discussion is presented of the implication of these trends for an ideological realignment of the major political parties in the US. 4 Tables. AA.

A metaanalysis of split ballots conducted by the Gallup Organization in the 1930s, 1940s, & early 1950s shows that response-order effects were generally small in magnitude when averaged across a great variety of topics & questions -- typically less than 5% in effect size -- & as compared with many of those reported in the response-effects literature today. When analyzed by various question characteristics, the results provided some support for predictions derived from current cognitive models of response-order effects, particularly those from satisficing theory (Simon, Herbert, 1957). As predicted, questions asked orally were more likely to generate a statistically significant pattern of recency effects if the response alternatives or the questions as a whole were longer rather than shorter. Other predicted patterns of primacy & recency effects failed to materialize, however, perhaps largely because of the inherent design limitations & partial confounding of question attributes in any such secondary analysis of archival survey data, but perhaps, too, because of simple chance variations. The data from these early experiments nonetheless provide a partial, albeit limited, test of rival hypotheses & explanations of response-order effects in the literature. 7 Tables, 3 Appendixes, 31 References. Adapted from the source document.

1 broadside. ; Caption title. ; Signed: George Bishop. ; Reproduction of original in the Huntington Library.

peer-reviewed ; Globally, governments have increased their commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the same time, the compostable bioplastic market is growing rapidly as many single-use petrochemical plastics are being banned internationally. A prospective consequential life cycle assessment approach was conducted to quantify the environmental envelopes of compostable bioplastic production for the bioplastic value chains to operate within the bounds of climate neutrality. Four indicative feedstocks of (i) lignocellulosic biomass from forestry, (ii) maize biomass, (iii) food waste digestate, and (iv) food waste were evaluated for potential bioplastic production. Upstream and end-of-life emissions for these feedstocks equated to GHG balances of -16.3 to +23.5, 0.3 to 1.0, 1.0 to 4.8, and -0.1 to +0.4 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic, respectively. The scenarios demonstrated that indirect land-use change could have a considerable negative impact on the environmental performance of maize-based plastic, but a positive impact, via terrestrial carbon sequestration, for lignocellulosic-derived plastic (unless increased feedstock demand drives deforestation). Appropriate use of residues and sidestreams is critical to the environmental performance of bioplastics. Efficient utilisation of residues may require decentralisation of bio-plastic production and implementation of biorefinery and circular economy concepts.