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This paper was presented at 1991 annual meeting of the Midwest Association of Public Opinion Research.

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INTRODUCTION

Sociological theory postulates that individuals perceive and interpret their environment through social interactions (Merton, 1968). Lack of interaction, characterized by inadequate interpersonal communication and/or use of mass media may lead to substantial inaccuracies in the perception of public opinion and behavior, crystalizing in the concept of pluralistic ignorance (Katz & Allport, 1931; Allport, 1937; Scheff, 1975). Pluralistic ignorance describes the situation when a minority position in public opinion is incorrectly perceived to be the majority position and vice versa (O'Gorman, 1975, 1979, 1980, O'Gorman & Garry, 1976, Taylor, 1982). Taylor summarized:

Lemert tested the looking glass effect through several surveys prior to votes on two controversial ballot measures in Oregon (1986). The study compared the accuracy of election predictions by politicians with those made by the voting public. He hypothesized and found that "politicians were better than voters at predicting the outcomes of two controversial ballot measures, and they displayed fewer and weaker signs of the Looking-Glass effect" (1986, 219).

Studies have suggested that communications must account for some of the variations in the accuracy of these perceptions (Breed & Ktsanes, 1961; Fields & Schuman, 1976), even though Lazarsfeld, et. al. (1944), discovered that very few voters are converted by political propaganda. Nevertheless, during interviews in preparation for a recent political campaign, the author found local political party leaders and former candidates believed that local voters consumed and could be influenced by political information transmitted through local media. Those interviewed admitted that their responses were based on nothing more than "gut instinct" or common sense. Could they be overestimating the use by voters of media for gathering political information? Were they ignorant or accurate of the true political media consumption patterns of the local voters? Were they displaying pluralistic ignorance or the looking glass effect? The results were important to the author as campaign manager for a circuit judge. Little research is available on media consumption in local, especially rural campaigns.

In the interviews, the party leaders and former candidates identified eleven "media" by which they believed political information is transmitted and through which voting decisions are influenced: meeting the candidates face-to-face (through door-to-door campaigning and the endless fried buffalo fish dinners), meeting campaign workers and political party officials (who often serve as candidate surrogates), family and relatives, friends and neighbors, co-workers, the local (and only) AM farm radio station, the "throw-away shopper" all-advertising newspaper, the regional newspaper (published out of county, but with a weekly local supplement), mailed literature, handouts and leaflets, and yard signs/store signs and bumper stickers. The five interpersonal sources were suggested without any knowledge of Katz and Lazarsfeld's two-step flow model of public opinion (1955). Although the region borders the statistical metropolitan area (SMA) of St. Louis and many residents are employed in the greater metropolitan area, no candidate could afford to utilize the St. Louis newspapers, radio stations or television stations, thus they were not included in the study.

When interviewed, the politicos offered two consistent responses. First, they agreed that the primary source of political information and most consumed medium in the county was the "shopper." As a result and following established tradition, every candidate advertised primarily and heavily in the weekly "throw-away" paper. Because of the heavy advertising demand, the paper, delivered by the postal service to nearly every household in the county, added a second section during the weeks prior to November 1990. Second, they agreed that the most influential element in any local race was face to face contact with the candidate. As a result and following established tradition, every candidate attempted to knock on every door of every farmhouse, townhouse or shanty, as well as attend every church picnic and buffalo fish fry, and walk in every parade. The author's candidate and his wife distributed nearly a thousand pencils, each with a double-headed eraser that looked like a gavel and imprinted with the slogan, "Keep the Gavel in the Hand of Experience."

This study hypothesized that the weekly shopper would be the predominant source of political information. In effect, the hypothesis contradicts the literature on pluralistic ignorance, which would argue that the political advice would be inaccurate. Lemert's research, however, suggests that political officials are more accurate that the average voters.

METHOD

This study is based on results of exit polling during the 1990 elections in Jersey County, Illinois. Jersey is a small rural Illinois county (population just over 20,000) located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers about fifty miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. The county's population is divided between rural areas and the county seat of Jerseyville. There are 12 voting precincts in the city of 7,500 and 17 precincts in the rest of the county. Based on the voting lists, it was found that the numbers of registered voters and of those regularly voting are evenly distributed between county seat and the rural county.

Four precincts, two rural and two city, that have been most consistent with the county's voting patterns were selected for polling. Jersey County, much like the state of Illinois, is a split or swing county. Sheriff, county clerk and state representative are Republicans while the circuit clerk, state's attorney, coroner and state senator are Democrats. Out of the 22 contested races in the last three general elections (1988, 1986, 1984), one of the rural precinct voted 100% with the county-wide winners, whether Republican or Democrat. The three other precincts voted with the county 21 out of 22 times (95.4% consistency). The choice of the four precincts was reconfirmed with the results of the November 1990 general election. All four precincts voted 100% with the county in the seven major contested state and county-wide races.

The three page survey, which was self-administered, was offered to every voter exiting the polls. A total of 542 persons out of 980 voters completed at least part of the survey. The questions designed to explore pluralistic ignorance were part of a larger set of questions exploring media use patterns in local political elections. For each of the eleven media identified in the preliminary interviews, each respondent was asked two questions: "How much information did you get from each source?" and "How much information do you think others got from each source?" The respondents answered by circling "a lot," "some" or "none" on a three element Likert-scale. There were 494 valid cases for the questions on pluralistic ignorance.

The results for each medium were subjected to crosstab analysis resulting in six cell table. The results were recoded into four cell format most appropriate to pluralistic ignorance analysis. Both possible combinations, "none + some" vs. "a lot" and "none" vs. "some + a lot," were calculated. With only two exceptions, the "none + some/none + some" cell was substantially larger (by an average of 32.5% for nine cases; by 30.14% for all eleven cases) than the "some + a lot/some + a lot" cell. Therefore, the latter combination of separating out the "none" answers and combining the "some" and "a lot" answers was deemed more usable for identifying the different effects.

RESULTS

The looking glass effect occurs when people believe that others behave or are influenced in the same manner or to the same degree. The "true" looking glass effect occurs when the majority accurately gauges the behavior of or influence on the majority. The alternative, when the minority accurately gauges the minority, is a "false" looking glass, because it mirrors the minority, not the majority. Therefore, those who respond that others receive as much (or as little) political information from a certain medium as do they are demonstrating the looking glass effect. The larger or majority group is the true looking glass while the smaller or minority group is the false looking glass.

Pluralistic ignorance occurs when people believe that others behave in a different manner, regardless of majority or minority status. Those who believe others are influenced less than they are (none vs. some or a lot) exhibit a conservative bias. (See Table I)

All but one Jersey County medium (local radio station) revealed true looking glass effects. Of those ten media, all but one (co-workers) revealed a true looking glass effect for the majority of the respondents. Co-workers revealed a plurality of responses for a true looking glass effect. The local radio station revealed a plurality of responses indicating pluralistic ignorance. (See Table II) However, when total looking glass effects (both true and false) are compared to total pluralistic ignorance, all of media demonstrate the looking glass effect. (See Table III) The effect was significant for every medium (df 1, p<.001). (See Table IV)

Finally, as hypothesized, the respondents identified the weekly shopper as the most consumed source of political information. This was followed by direct mail. (See Tables II and III)

DISCUSSION

Pluralistic ignorance assumes that respondents are not able to accurate assess the opinions and behaviors of others. There is little evidence of the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance, at least with regard to estimates of the community's use of media for political information, in Jersey County.

Breed and Ktsanes (1961) suggest that pluralistic ignorance on an issue is reduced as media coverage of the issue is increased. However, this study did not test an issue but rather the means of communicating the issues. Furthermore, there was no discussion in the media of the media campaign. The quality, content and number of advertisements, literature and signs were the subject of a number of conversations, but this interaction was not measured.

Jersey County is a close-knit, extended family community. In a prior election, the incumbent sheriff was challenged by his son-in-law's father, a retired state trooper. The county treasurer and the state's attorney (and former law partner of my candidate) for the neighboring county are brothers of the deputy chairman of the county board. Their sister is married to another member of the county board. Everyone is on amiable terms and each relative has to run on his or her own merits. For example, the brother-in-law of the county clerk has challenged the deputy chairman of the board for his seat. And, the member of a large and well-known farming family (with members on the local school board and board of trustees of the local community college) failed to unseat the popular county treasurer.

My candidate was unique in that he was born, raised and educated in California. Our primary election opponent campaigned on a heritage of 177 years of family in the county and membership on the best basketball team ever fielded by our high school. Our general election opponent's mother is editor of the regional newspaper's county supplement. Everybody knows everybody. As a result, is little if any pluralistic ignorance in Jersey County.

The local politicos may not have any quantitative skills, but they do know their constituents. This appears to bear out Lemert's (1986) conclusions about the savvy of politicians. Furthermore, Cohen's (1988) jury experiment indicated that the more distant the audience, the higher the third person effect. Since the third-person effect is an element of pluralistic ignorance, perhaps the same is true with pluralistic ignorance generally -- the closer the audience, the lower the evidence of pluralistic ignorance.

Two sets of questions come to mind when looking at the results: why were the Shopper and direct mail higher (and similar) in results?, and why were the candidates rated lower? The immediate answer has to do with contact. The Shopper is mailed to nearly every address in the county and the mailed literature was mailed to every registered voter in the county. On the other hand, with rare exception, political candidates are unable to meet every voter. Even those few candidates who attempted to go to every household in the county were not completely successful. The same can be said about the other media, particularly the regional newspaper (which only reaches less than 6,000 subscribers in the county) and the local radio station (which has a limited range).

The local radio station, being on the AM band, is severely restricted in it broadcast time and area. The AM radio signal, because of the nature of its frequency, deteriorates with nightfall. The effective broadcast area, according to the station, is the county seat and northern portions of the county. Accordingly, the two rural precincts polled, both to the south of the station, could be out of reach of the station signal.

In order to assess the impact of the signal range, rural/southern and "urban"/northern voters were examined separately and compared. Contrary to expectation, there was no difference between rural and urban voters with regard to their use of the radio station as a source of political information. On the other hand, the two sets of voters indicated differences in their use of the candidates (chi-squared 9.0, df 2, p<.05) and party officials (chi-squared 12.9, df 2, p<.01) as sources of information. Again, this may be a result of the campaign behaviors of the candidates, all of whom went door-to-door in Jerseyville but only some of whom tried to go door-to-door in the country. Similarly, political party officials campaigned only at political events, such as parades and rallies. Likewise, the two groups of voters reported differences in their use of the Shopper (chi squared 10, df 2, p<.01), for which I am at a loss to explain. On the other hand, one medium -- direct mail literature -- revealed a very highly correlation (rho=9) between the two groups. This should have been expected since every voter was mailed literature and this study polled only voters.

My candidate won.

SOURCE OF OTHERS INFORMATION

SOURCE OF MY INFORMATION None Some or A Lot

None 3. Looking 2. Pluralistic

Glass Ignorance

(false)

Some or A Lot 4. Conservative 1. Looking

Bias Glass

(true)

1 + 3 = looking glass effect

2 + 4 = pluralistic ignorance effect

 
 

SOURCE OF INFORMATION	LOOKING  GLASS	PLURAL  IGNORA	LOOKING  GLASS-F	CONSERV.  BIAS
Local "throw-away" paper	73.7%	17.2%	5.8%	3.2%
Literature by mail	71.1	18.2	7.5	3.3
Family and relatives	66.6	26.4	4.3	2.7
Yardsigns and bumperstickers	66.4	21.4	10.8	1.4
Political candidates	65.4	20.1	9.8	4.7
Friends and neighbors	64.6	26.2	6.2	3.0
Handouts and leaflets	62.4	26.2	8.9	2.6
Political party officials	61.7	24.1	10.5	3.7
Regional newspaper	59.6	29.9	8.2	2.3
Co-workers	46.6	39.4	11.5	2.4
Local radio station	38.8	45.2	13.6	2.4

 
 

 

SOURCE OF INFORMATION	LOOKING GLASS EFFECTS	PLURAL.IGNOR. EFFECTS
Local "throw-away" paper	79.5%	20.4%
Literature by mail	78.6	21.5
Yardsigns and bumperstichers	77.2	22.8
Political candidates	75.2	24.8
Political party officials	72.2	27.8
Handouts and leaflets	71.3	28.8
Family and relatives	70.9	29.1
Friends and neighbors	70.8	29.2
Regional newspaper	67.8	32.2
Co-worders	58.1	41.8
Local radio station	52.4	47.6

 

SOURCE OF INFORMATION	CHI SQUARE  (p<.001)	DF	SIGNIFICANCE
Yardsigns and bumperstickers	86.0	1	yes
Literature by mail	52.1	1	yes
Political candidates	49.5	1	yes
Political party officials	48.3	1	yes
Handouts and leaflets	43.9	1	yes
Local "throw-away" paper	40.7	1	yes
Regional newspaper	33.6	1	yes
Co-workers	27.3	1	yes
Friends and neighbors	24.8	1	yes
Local radio station	23.4	1	yes
Family and relativfes	14.7	1	yes

* Allport, Floyd (1937). "Toward a science of public opinion." Public Opinion Quarterly 1(1):7-23.

* Breed, Warren and Thomas Ktsanes (1961). "Pluralistic ignorance in the process of pinion formation." Public Opinion Quarterly 25(3):382-392.

* Cohen, Jeremy, Diana Mutz, Vincent Price and Albert Gunther (1988). "Perceived impact of defamation: An experiment on third-person effects." Public Opinion Quarterly 52(2):161-173.

* Davison, W. Phillips (1983). "The third-person effects in communication." Public Opinion Quarterly 47(1):1-15.

* Fields, James and Howard Schuman (1976). "Public beliefs about the beliefs of the public." Public Opinion Quarterly 40(4):427-448.

* Glynn, Carroll J. (1987). "The communication of public opinion." Journalism Quarterly 64(4):688-697.

* Katz, Elihu and Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1955). Personal Influence. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

* Katz, Daniel and Floyd H. Allport (1931). Student Attitudes. Syracuse, NY: Craftsmen Press.

* Lazarsfeld, Paul, B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet (1944). The People's Choice. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

* Lemert, James (1986). "Picking the winners: Politician vs. voter predictions of two controversial ballot measures." Public Opinion Quarterly 50:208-221.

* Merton, Robert (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, NY: The Free Press.

* O'Gorman, Hubert J. (1980). "False consciousness of kind: Pluralistic ignorance among aging." Research on Aging 2(1):105-128.

* O'Gorman, Hubert J. (1979). "White and black perceptions of racial values." Public Opinion Quarterly 43(1):48-59.

* O'Gorman, Hubert J. (1975). "Pluralistic ignorance and white estimates of white support for racial segregation." Public Opinion Quarterly 39(3):313-330.

* O'Gorman, Hubert J. and Stephen L. Garry (1976). "Pluralistic ignorance -- a replication and extension." Public Opinion Quarterly 40(4):449-458.

* Scheff, Thomas J. (1975). "Toward a sociological model of consensus." American Sociological Review 32(1):32-46.

* Taylor, D. Garth (1982). "Pluralistic ignorance and the spiral of silence: A formal analysis." Public Opinion Quarterly 46:311-355.