Public Opinion Reaction to Repeated Events: Citizen Response to Multiple Supreme Court
Abortion Decisions
Author(s): Danette Brickman and David A. M. Peterson
Source:
Political Behavior,
Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), pp. 87-112
Published by: Springer
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Political
Behavior,
Vol.
28,
No.
1,
March
2006
(@ 2006)
DOI:
10.1007/s 1109-005-9003-0
PUBLIC
OPINION REACTION
TO REPEATED
EVENTS: Citizen
Response
to
Multiple
Supreme
Court
Abortion
Decisions
Danette
Brickman
and
David
A. M.
Peterson
While
numerous
works
explores
how
single
events or
political
actions
affect
public
opinion,
almost
no
research
explores
how
this effect evolves with
repeated
actions. The
Conditional
Response
Model
holds that while
elite actors
can
influence and
polarize
the
public
when
they
first act
on
an
issue,
subsequent
action
will
not
have this same effect.
We
challenge
this model based on its
depiction
of
psychological
models
of
attitude
formation
and
change.
Instead of
focusing
on
the number
of
times an actor has ad-
dressed an
issue,
we
argue
that the state of
public
opinion
is the
key
to
determining
how
the
public
will react to
multiple
elite actions
over a
long
timeframe. We
examine how the
public
reacted to
multiple
Supreme
Court
decisions on abortion. Our results
suggest
that
the
Conditional
Response
Model does a
poor job
of
depicting
public opinion
and
that
actors are
not limited
in
their
influence
by
the
number
of
previous
actions on an
issue.
Key
words:
public opinion;
supreme
court; abortion;
attitude
change.
INTRODUCTION
One
model of how citizens
respond
to an
issue
moving
on
and
off the
public
agenda,
the
Conditional
Response
Model
(Johnson
and
Martin,
1998),
suggests
that the
key
determinant of
how
these
agenda
shifts affect
citizens is
the number
of
times an issue
has been raised
by
a
political
actor.
The
Conditional
Response
Model's
basis in
public
opinion
is the Elaboration
Likelihood
Model
(ELM).
The
ELM
is
a dual
process
model
of
attitude
formation and
change.
If
a
person
uses a
central
form
of
processing,
Danette
Brickman,
Department
of
Government,
John
Jay
College
of
Criminal
Justice,
445
West
59th
Street,
New
York, NY,
10019, USA;
David A.M.
Peterson,
Department
of
Political
Science,
Texas A&M
University,
4348
TAMU,
College
Station,
TX,
77843,
USA
(dave@polisci.tamu.edu).
87
0190-9320/06/0300-0087/0
?
2006
Springer
Science+Business
Media,
Inc.
88
BRICKMAN AND
PETERSON
elaborating
on
his or her
attitude,
then
the effect of this
processing
is
stron-
ger, longer
lasting,
and
resistant
to further
processing.
In
contrast,
periph-
eral
processing
is
largely
ephemeral.
This
processing
is more
cursory
and is
relatively
short
lived. The
Conditional
Response
Model
holds that the
first
time
an
issue
is raised
by
a
political
actor citizens
process
the information
centrally,
elaborating
their attitudes.
That
is,
citizens' attitudes
will
go
from
unstructured
and
essentially
random
to
meaningful
concrete attitudes.
The
systematic
nature of attitudes
and,
more
importantly,
the factors that divide
and
polarize
the
public
will
become
more
meaningful.
This
crystallization
and
polarization
then remains
in
perpetuity.
If
the actor raises the issues
again
it
will
not be able
to influence
the
public
and there
will be no
change
in
either
the structure of an
individual's
attitudes or the
polarization
be-
tween
groups
in
the
public.
This model
of attitude
formation,
however,
is
out
of line
with the
prevail-
ing
understanding
of
mass
political
attitudes.
We believe that
this
is
both
a
misreading
of the
ELM
and
fundamentally
incorrect
under
a
competing
model,
Receive-Accept-Sample
(RAS)
model
(Zaller, 1992)
of attitude
for-
mation.
With the
RAS,
if
there
is
a
heated debate
about
an
issue,
a
"two-
sided"
information
environment,
there
will
be a considerable
amount
of
consistency
within
groups (parties, religious
affiliations)
as individuals
rely
on
elite cues to
find the relevant considerations.
In
contrast,
if
there is
no
debate
about the
issue,
a "zero-sided" information
environment,
voters
cannot
use elite
cues to
piece
together
their considerations
and attitudes
will
be less
consistent within relevant
groups.
A
political
actor's
role, then,
is to
move the
issue
from a
"zero-sided"
information
environment to
a "two-
sided"
one.
Instead of
focusing
on the number
of
times
an
issue has been
raised on the
public's agenda,
we
focus
on
the state of
public
opinion
and
citizens' attitudes
at
the
time the
political
actor
raises the
issue.
To
do this
we
focus
on
one
particular
influence,
the US
Supreme
Court,
and
one
issue,
abortion. We make
this choice
in
part
because
re-
peated Supreme
Court decisions
on an
issue
present
an
opportunity
to
see how
a
political
actor's effect
on
public
opinion
evolves with
repeated
actions
on an
issue.
We
also choose to
examine
the influence
of
the Court
because
of its
unique
role
in
politics
and the
growing understanding
of
how the
public
reacts to the Court
(Franklin
and
Kosaki, 1989;
Johnson
and
Martin, 1998).
This article
develops
and tests
a
set of
hypotheses
intended to our under-
standing
of how
political
actors
in
general,
and the
Supreme
Court
in
par-
ticular
influence
the
state of
public opinion.
In
the next
section,
we
discuss
the two
models of attitude
formation and
change
more,
focusing
on
how
repeated exposure
to
political
information should affect
attitudes.
Next,
we
lay
out
the
specific
area where these
hypotheses
will
be
tested:
public
reactions
to
Supreme
Court decisions
on
abortion.
We
then discuss the
PUBLIC OPINION
REACTION TO REPEATED EVENTS 89
importance
of
how the
Court
influences the
public.
That
is,
we believe that
while
we contribute
to the broad
theory
of attitude
change,
the
specific
question
of how the
Supreme
Court
in
particular
influences the
public
is
important
and understudied.
Next,
we
provide
the results
for how
the
Court
influences the
public
for three abortion cases: Roe
v.
Wade,
Webster
v.
Reproductive
Health
Services,
and Planned Parenthood
of
Missouri
v.
Danforth.
This section is a
mix of
summarizing
previous
research,
reanalyz-
ing
old
data,
and
presenting
new
work on a
previous
unstudied decision.
While the
key
difference we focus on
is
the
impact
of
repeated political
information,
the data
we have
allow us to
test
some
of the
specific
elements
of
the
RAS
model.
Finally,
we conclude
by
discussing
the
importance
of
these results for our
understanding
of attitude formation and
change
and
the influence of the
Supreme
Court
in
American
politics.
Models of Attitude Formation and
Change1
Again,
the
Conditional
Response
Model rests on a
particular
understand-
ing
of
the
ELM,
a
model based
on the work of
Petty
and
Cacioppo
(1986a,
b)
and
has been
applied
by
numerous
political
scientists
(Alvarez
and
Brehm,
1995; Bianco, 1998;
Cobb and
Kuklinski, 1997; Gibson,
1998;
Hoekstra and
Segal,
1996; Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton, Levine,
and
Morgan,
1998;
Johnson
and
Martin, 1998;
Kuklinski and
Hurley
1994; Mondak,
1990,
1993a, b; Mutz,
1998;
Nelson and
Oxley,
1999).
According
to the
ELM,
people
process
information
and form
attitudes either
centrally
or
peripherally.
Central
processing
implies
that the
person
carefully
considers
the content of
information,
determines
how
the information
relates
to their
current
attitude,
and
changes
the attitude
in
response
to this new informa-
tion. This
change,
then,
is
relatively permanent
and the
attitude itself is
somewhat resistant
to further
attempts
at
persuasion. Centrally
processed
(or elaborated)
attitudes are more
meaningful
and stable
evaluations of
some attitude
object.
In
peripheral processing,
the
person
uses short cuts
(length
of an
argument
implies
correctness or the
credibility
of the
source)
and
accepts
or
rejects
the
information based on these cues without
fully
evaluating
the
content
of
the
message
itself.
Peripheral
processing
leads
to
short lived
and transient
changes
in
attitudes. The
person
is not
insulated
from
further
attempts
at
persuasion
and
should
respond
to
messages
in
the
future.
Peripherally
processed
attitudes are
relatively
unstable and do not
provide
much of a structure to how the
person
thinks or behaves. From this
model,
Johnson
and Martin's Conditional
Response
Model holds
that
the
first time
an
issue
is
raised
on
the
public agenda,
citizens
will
engage
in
central
processing
and this central
processing
will
insulate citizens from
subsequent
attention
to an issue.
90
BRICKMAN
AND
PETERSON
Thus,
the Conditional
Response
Model relies on
two
derivations of
the
ELM.
First,
that evidence
of
systematic
attitude
change
and
polarization
implies
that
central
processing
occurred.
And
second,
that once central
pro-
cessing
occurs,
further attitude
change
will
not occur. Neither of these
assumptions,
we
believe,
fit
with the
prevailing understanding
of
the
ELM.
The evidence
for
central
processing posited
to
support
the Conditional Re-
sponse
Model is evidence of
polarization
on
an issue
among
various
groups
(i.e.
race
or
gender
is a
stronger predictor
of an attitude after it is
placed
on the
public agenda).
The
assumption
of
this test
for
central
processing
is
that
peripheral processing
must
produce
essentially
random
change
in
atti-
tudes. It need not.
Peripheral
processing
can
invoke
the
same set of
predis-
positions
as central
processing; only
how
they
are used will differ. More
importantly,
both
types
of
processing
will
be
indistinguishable
from the
type
of evidence that has been used to
support
the
Conditional
Response
Model.
As for
the
second
implication,
that central
processing
means there
will
be
no
subsequent change,
there
is no
evidence that
repetition
will
have no
influence over
centrally processed
attitudes. While
centrally processed
atti-
tudes
may
be more resistant to
change
than
peripherally processed
atti-
tudes,
there
is
no reason to
expect
them to
be
completely
resistant
to
change. Subsequent
events
that raise an issue
may
result
in
more central
processing
and more attitude
change.
Furthermore,
we
believe that
the
empirical predictions
derived
from
the
Conditional
Response
Model
are
at odds with a
second,
equally
sound mod-
el of attitude
change:
Zaller and
Feldman's RAS model
(Feldman, 1995;
Zaller,
1992;
Zaller and
Feldman,
1992).2
The
model
is
based
on
three
axi-
oms.
First,
citizens
are
ambivalent
about most
issues;
they
hold
consider-
ations
that
support
either
side
of
an
issue.
Second,
a
person's
attitude about
an
issue
is
shaped
by
the
considerations accessible
in
his
or
her
memory.
When asked
to
express
a
political
attitude
people quickly
canvas their mem-
ories for the
most accessible considerations
and
put
them
together.
Third,
the
accessibility
of these
considerations is
shaped by
balance
of
information
in
the
public
debate
about the issue. The RAS
model,
then,
implies
that
the
effect
from
the
initial
discussion of
an issue should not
be
any
different
than
subsequent
discussions
as
citizens
construct
their
attitudes based
on
what considerations are
accessible,
and this
accessibility
will
be altered each
time
an issue is raised. Citizens
should not
become
insulated
from
the
ef-
fect
of elite
discourse.3
We turn to the RAS
model
in
part
because we think it is
a better
depiction
of
the
empirical
evidence
in
support
of the
Conditional
Response
Model. That
model is
fundamentally
about the
attitudes
of
individual
citizens,
the
evidence
Johnson
and Martin marshal in
support
of
it
is
aggregate
in
nature.
They
base
their conclusion on the
aggregate
shifts
in
public opinion
along
identified
groups
in
the
electorate. The
ELM
is a model
of how
individual
process
and