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BECAUSE OF THEIR INTEREST TO SOCIAL SCIENTISTS, PUBLIC JUDGMENTS ABOUT THE ECONOMY ARE COMMONLY MEASURED IN SURVEYS. HOWEVER, LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THE MEASUREMENT PROCESS ON THESE JUDGMENTS. THE AUTHORS OF THIS ARTICLE CONDUCTED TWO SURVEY-BASED EXPERIMENTS DESIGNED TO EXAMINE THIS ISSUE. BASED ON RECENT THEORIES OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SURVEY RESPONSE, THEY EXAMINED WHETHER JUDGMENTS ABOUT THE NATIONAL ECONOMY WOULD BE INFLUENCED BY SURVEY CONTEXT, ESPECIALLY FOR RESPONDENTS WHO LACKED STRONG POLITICAL BELIEFS. THE RESULTS OF BOTH EXPERIMENTS SUGGESTS THAT THIS IS THE CASE.

Reanalysis of studies that originally demonstrated the impact of the order of the two happiness items casts doubt on the subtraction hypothesis and related models as explanations of the earlier findings. (Abstract amended)

Before answering target questions, most respondents were asked about one of 2 sets of related issues; the remainder received unrelated, 'neutral' items. For 5 of the 6 target issues, the 2 groups receiving context items differed significantly in their answers to target questions. Only one of the substantive context groups differed significantly from the 'neutral' group. (Abstract amended)