Political Behavior, Vol. 14, No.

2, 1992

IMPERSONAL INFLUENCE: Effects of Representations of Public Opinion on Political Attitudes

Diana C. Mutz
Many phenomena of interest to political scientists involve what may be termed "impersonal influence"; that is, influence that derives from individuals' perceptions of others' attitudes, beliefs, or experiences. "Others" in this case refers not to the close friends and acquaintances that concerned the authors of classics such as The People's Choice and Personal Influence, but rather to the anonymous"others" outside an individual's realm of personal contacts. Modern mass media facilitate the influence of anonymous others by devoting considerable time and attention to portraying trends in mass opinion. This study explores the rationale for theories of impersonal influence, synthesizingexisting research findings falling under this general theoretical framework, and investigating its psychological underpinnings using experiments embedded in representative surveys.

In the nineteenth century, Tocqueville observed that "The more equal the conditions of men become . . . the more easily do they give way to the current of the multitude, and the more difficult it is for them to adhere by themselves to an opinion which the multitude discard" (Tocqueville, 1835, p. 205). Over a century later, Riesman and colleagues (1953) expressed similar concerns about "other-directed" people whose "contemporaries are the source of direction for the individual--either those known to him or those with whom he is indirectly acquainted, through friends and through the mass media" (p. 37). Modern mass media have undoubtedly exacerbated the potential for such influence by devoting considerable time and attention to portraying trends in and states of opinion. But the concern with social influence has been investigated most thoroughly at the level of personal acquaintances and group influence. The legacy handed down by Personal Influence (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955) and related work was that interpersonal information Diana C. Mutz, Department of Political Science, and Schoolof Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. 89
0190-9320/92/0600-0089506.50/0 1992 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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sources carried tremendous credibility as trustworthy sources of political opinion. Peoples" perceptions of the attitudes of more distant, impersonal others were therefore of little theoretical or practical interest. Social influence processes generally are framed as diminishing media's impact; Katz (1986), for example, demonstrates that the power scholars attribute to mass media rises and falls in inverse proportion to the power attributed to personal relations (see also Chaffee and Mutz, 1988). However, contemporary findings imply that mass media coverage may facilitate social influence processes rather than compete with them. Many phenomena of interest to political scientists involve what may be termed "impersonal influence"; that is, influence that derives from individuals" perceptions of others" attitudes, beliefs, or experiences. "Others" in this case refers not to the close friends and acquaintances that concerned the authors of classics such as The People's Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet, 1944) and Personal Influence, but rather to the anonymous "others" outside an individual's realm of personal contacts. The power of these collective representations flows ti'om the sheer numbers they claim to represent rather than from their specific identities. It is in this sense that impersonal influence may be viewed as a fundamentally different social influence process with fundamentally different mechanisms of influence from conformity or group identification. Knowledge of the attitudes, beliefs, or experiences of anonymous others must, by definition, reach the individual through mediated information. By serving as the common conduit through which information about distant others may flow, mass media play a pivotal role in impersonal influence. This study explores the rationale for theories of impersonal influence, synthesizing existing research findings thlling under this general theoretical framework. I begin by discussing its likely political contexts and the empirical evidence bearing on impersonal eflbcts. Next, I differentiate impersonal influence from other forms of social influence, and explore potential theoretical explanations for these phenomena, Finally, I examine some preliminary data bearing on the psychological underpinnings of impersonal influence using experimental designs embedded in representative surveys.
POLITICAL CONTEXTS

The potential for impersonal influence is present in a wide variety of contemporary political situations. ]'he sheer prevalence of media coverage incorporating information about the general public's attitudes and beliefs hardly bears mention. In the election context in particular, mass media coverage is dominated by information about who is ahead, who is gaining ground, and predictions about who ultimately will win. Indeed, horse race

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coverage has been documented as the dominant story type across several campaign contexts (see, e.g., Broh, 1977; Robinson and Sheehan, 1983). In addition, voters quickly learn about candidate viability (Brady and Johnston, 1987). Despite generally low levels of attention and retention of news, information about the horse race does seem to penetrate the public consciousness (Barrels, 1988). In fact, Robinson and Clancey (1985) argue that even the strong media emphasis on horse race-type reporting is not adequate to explain "why winners and losers stick better in the national memory than other day-to-day news events" (p. 62). Information about trends and likely winners and losers dominates the public memory even beyond what one would expect based on the extent of media coverage alone (Bartels, 1988; Brady and Johnston, 1987). Beyond the election context, polls on controversial issues have become increasingly common media fare, even when the general public has no direct influence in resolving the issue debate. Turner and Martin (1983) estimate that on average at least one poll finding appears in every newspaper issued in Britain and the United States. Public awareness of polls has also increased dramatically (Traugott, 1990). Media portrayals of public support for issues are by no means new; but the fact that they are now often based on poll results rather than intuition has undoubtedly contributed to their accuracy and credibility, and to the amount of news play these impressions receive (Sudman, 1986). Public concern over the effects that awareness of public opinion may have on the formation of individual attitudes has increased in recent years along with the ubiquity of public opinion polls (see, e.g., Bogart, 1972; Gollin, 1980; Roll and Cantril, 1980; Wheeler, 1976). This general concern has become a matter of public debate in at least three specific contexts. Exit polls and early media predictions of election outcomes have triggered worry at both local and national levels about effects on political activists, and on the voting behavior of those who have not yet made it to the polls (see, e.g., Delli Carpini, 1984; Jackson, 1983; Sudman, 1986; Woffinger and Linquiti, 1981). During presidential election years, similar complaints have been launched about the potential effects of media reports of east coast election results on voting in the west (see, e.g. DuBois, 1983; Epstein and Strom, 1981; Kraus and Davis, 1976; Lang and Lang, 1968; Tuchrnan and Coffin, 1971). A third, related controversy surrounds the influence of momentum on the presidential nomination process; what effect does knowing who won Iowa or New Hampshire have on subsequent political attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Aldrich, 1980; Barrels, 1988; Shanks et al., 1985). At the same time that concern about situations facilitating impersonal influence has increased, researeh on mass media effects increasingly sug-

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gests that media's primary impact may be on social-level perceptions rather than on personal attitudes or beliefs, In studies of agenda-setting, for example, mass media are typically found to have a greater impact on peoples' perceptions of the collective salience of issues than on the salience of issues to individuals themselves (see Becket, MeCombs, and MeLeod, 1975; MeLeod, Becker, and Byrnes, 1974): "A person may not perceive some problem as more important to him or her personally just because he or she has seen a great deal of news concerning it, but that person would be very likely to think that it is an important issue to other people, and thus an important social problem" (Mutz, 1992, p. 5; see also Hawkins and Pingree, 1982). Based on similar evidence, Tyler and Cook (1984) dubbed mass media's influence an "impersonal impact," influeneing perceptions of others' thoughts and opinions without influeneing personal-level judgments (see also Tyler, 1980, 1984). Studies of the "third-person effeet" have similarly suggested that people perceive that mass media's "greatest impact will not be on "me," or on 'you,' but on 'there'--the third persons" (Davison, 1983, p. 3). Without directly influencing individual opinions, the third-person effect implies that mass media influence perceptions of the opinions of others (see, e.g., Cohen et al., 1988; Mutz, 1989). To extend a well-worn maxim, one might say that mass media may not be particularly influential in telling people what to think, or perhaps even what to think about, but media are tremendously influential in telling people what others are thinking about. The general notion of a separation between personal and social-level judgments is, of course, not something entirely new to the political behavior literature. Research on sociotropic politics, for example, suggests that people's perceptions of collective economic conditions are maintained largely independent of their own personal experiences with economic problems (see, e.g., Kinder and Kiewiet, 1979, 1981); furthermore, these perceptions of the collective have important political consequences for attitudes toward candidates and public policy issues. Impersonal influence simply suggests that influence flows from perceptions of collective opinion as well as collective experience.
EMPIRICAL SUPPORT FOR IMPERSONAL INFLUENCE

Although these phenomena gathered under the impersonal influence umbrella are similar in that they all involve effeets of perceptions of the opinions of others, the extent of evidence varies greatly by context. For example, the consensus with respect to momentum in presidential primaries is that people's perceptions of the popularity of candidates often

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translate to votes (see, e.g., Abramowitz, 1987; Abramson et at., 1990; Bartels, 1988; Brady and Johnston, 1987). As Brady and Johnston (1987) note, critics are often vague about the mechanism, but they are convinced that it occurs and that it is mostly harmful. On the other hand, when generalizations about the influence of polls or early election returns have been made, researchers typically have coneluded that there is little, if any, scientific evidence to corroborate such popular claims (see, e.g., Marsh, 1984; Meier and Saunders, 1949; Sudman, 1986). Although such conclusions are overstatements of the actual ease, findings have been far from consistent. Studies have demonstrated "boomerang" or "underdog" patterns as often as movement in the direction of a majority opinion (e.g., Ceci and Kain, 1982; Fleitas, 1971; Gaskill, I974; LaPonce, 1966; Rothman, 1973). Moreover, many of these claims have relied on casual observation rather than systematic study (el. Campbell, 1968; Gallup and Rae, 1936; Marsh, 1984)? More rigorous evidence typically comes from experimental studies presenting college student subjects with representations of the opinions of other college students (see, e.g., Atkin, 1969; Ceei and Kain, 1982; Kaplowitz et al., 1983; Tyson and Kaplowitz, 1977)? Public opinion as it is usually presented in the mass media seldom provides information at this level of specificity; what's more, representations of the opinions of "other students" may serve as known and valued reference publics triggering group identification processes. Thus the applicability of these findings to situations of genuinely "impersonal" influence is questionable? Studies using survey evidence from national populations provide more appropriate tests of the potential for impersonal influence, but their findings are inconsistent and open to a variety of interpretations. For example, Johnston, Blais, Brady, and Crete (1990) found strong evidence that published polls drove public expectations in the 1988 Canadian election, but relatively weak evidence for an impact on pret~renees. Using two-stage least squares to disentangle reciprocal influences, Brady and Johnston (1987) found no support for a move toward perceived majority opinion. Field studies of the effects of east coast returns on voting in the west report similarly weak m null findings (e.g., Fuchs, 1966; Lang and Lang, 1968; Mendelsohn, 1966; Tuehman and Coffin, 1971). Evidence notwithstanding, apprehensions surround the publication of information about the opinions of mass publics throughout the world, and some countries such as Brazil, France, Germany, and Japan limit the publieation of information of this kind? Likewise, substantial majorities in the United States regard polls as harmful to the political process (Lavrakas, Holley, and Miller, 1991). Although critics of mass feedback technologies are varied and vocal, their

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objections are usually based on normative principles rather than empirical documentation of actual dangers (Traugott, 1990). As Campbell noted as early as 1951, the lack of control inherent in real world settings has made conclusions about this type of effect problematic. Indeed, the correspondence of people's own opinions with their perceptions of others' views is now typically attributed to the well-documented tendency to project one's own views onto others (Marks and Miller, 1987). Contrary to common presumptions, these are not necessarily rival hypotheses. "Projection," "false consensus," or "wish-fulfillment" effects may occur along with impersonal influence processes. But in either case, they present a substantial methodological obstacle to documenting impersonal influence.
CONCEPTUALIZING IMPERSONAL INFLUENCE

Unlike most forms of social influence, impersonal influence involves individuals' perceptions of the attitudes, beliefs, or experiences of diffuse others who are not known to the individual; in this sense it is tile antithesis of personal influence, whose power stems from the trustworthiness of interpersonal relations. However, in order to distinguish it further, a second criterion is also necessary since social influence by means of group identification may at times involve others with whom the individual is not acquainted. ~ When identification takes place, the attractiveness of the group identity is the source of power enabling a group to influence an individual (Kelman, 1961); when influence is truly impersonal in nature, the power of influence does not derive from the identity or attractiveness of the information's original source. 6 I use the term attractiveness here as Kelman (1961) has, to refer to the possession of qualities that make a continued relationship particularly desirable: "In other words, an agent is attractive when the individual is able to derive satisfaction from a self-definition with reference to him" (Kelman, 1961, p. 68). Thus, for purposes of differentiating this form of influence from related phenomena, impersonal influence should not be construed to include situations in which group identification is triggered by the presentation of information about the opinions of groups or social categories with known attributes. 7 For identification to occur, an individual must be acting within the particular role involved in the identification, and that relationship must be salient at the time (Kelman, 1961); these conditions are not necessary for impersonal influence. 8 Although this definition makes clear the necessary and sufficient conditions, at an operational level impersonal influence may be more difficult to discern because it accommodates a wide range of relationships between groups and individuals. For example, one could argue that even represen-

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tations of diffuse opinion at the level of "all Americans" trigger group identification processes. To the extent that Americans respond to these opinion cues because they derive satisfaction from defining themselves as Americans, identification is the mechanism through which representations of national opinion are influencing subsequent attitudes. Furthermore, the relationship between the group whose opinions are conveyed and the group of individuals subject to influence proves to be of little help in identifying instances of impersonal influence. In the simplest case of this phenomenon--when representations of American public opinion are said to influence the opinions of other Americans--these two groups are congruent. In the case of momentum in presidential primaries, the group influenced and the group whose opinions are being conveyed are completely independent of one another; the results of earlier primaries comprised of completely different publics influence the behavior of independent groups voting at later dates. In still other cases, the two groups are subsets or supersets of one another; for example, when representations of the opinions of Republicans nationally influence voters in New Hampshire, the influenced group represents a subset of the group whose opinions are being conveyed. Moreover, it is the nature of the influence process evoked rather than the nature of the groups that is the defining characteristic of impersonal influence. Unfortunately, at this point in the development of the theory, it is easier to define impersonal influence in terms of what it is not (a result of homophily or group attraction), than what it is. Instead of deriving power from the trustworthiness of interpersonal sources of political opinion or the attractiveness of group identities, impersonal influence derives its power of influence from numbers. This is not to say that the attractiveness of the group expressing opinions does not matter, but if a person is at all influenced by news that one American thinks Saddam Hussein should be driven out of Iraq, impersonal influence suggests that he or she should be influenced far more by news that thousands of equally attractive persons are of this mind. Social psychologists and political scientists alike have had limited success in determining precisely why numbers matter. Below I consider several potential explanations from a variety of sources. THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF IMPERSONAL INFLUENCE One major reason for the meager research on processes of impersonal influence in mass publics is the lack of a solid social-psychological theory explaining or predicting such effects. The roots of theoretical concern in this area can be seen most clearly in social psychological research on conformity. This logic was first set forth in The People's Choice, and later fol-

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lowed up as the theoretical basis for Personal Influence and numerous other studies. Stunning laboratory demonstrations of the power of conformity in small group contexts suggested the possibility of similar processes operating with respect to anonymous representations of public opinion (see, e.g., Asch, 1951; Sherif, Sherif, and Nebergall, 1965). If social influence could lead people to conform to majority opinion in judging the objective length of lines as in the Asch paradigm, many reasoned that surely much greater conformity would occur with subjective political judgments (Ross, Bierbrauer~ and Hoffman, 1976; see also, Allen, 1965; Kiesler and Kiesler, 1969). Although a link was forged between studies of majority influence and tile potential effects of representations of public opinion, 9 many of the key factors influencing the extent of conformity in laboratory contexts were missing from real world public opinion contexts. It remained to be seen whether this kind of influence would be sustained with the vast and undifferentiated reference public suggested by mass media reports and the results of opinion polls. The "group" in this case is not particularly attractive, cohesive, or interdependent, all conditions found to heighten the extent of conformity in laboratory situations (Ross, Bierbrauer, and Hoffman, 1976). And while studies of majority influence are replete with evidence that peoples' opinions will be shifted upon learning of the opinions held by others (see, e.g., Hovland and Pritzker, 1957; White, 1975), the mechanism generally claimed to bring about such influence is "the implicit assumption that behaving like others will elicit approval, whereas dissimilar behavior will bring negative consequences" (Cialdini and Petty, 1981; see also Allen, 1965; Kiesler and Kiesler, 1969). In short, studies of group influence provides little guidance in understanding shifts that result from representations of the opinions of psychologically distant and anonymous others, i0 Nonetheless, some possibilities have been suggested by research on the influence of early primary successes on subsequent public opinion. Regrettably, these "theories" generally are not well defined and are often without any clear basis of support in social psychological research. For example, traditional claims about the intrinsic desirability of being on the winning team provide one common explanation for momentum (Bartels, 1988; Kenney and Rice, 1990; Norrander, 1991). This type of motivation has been termed a "bandwagon" effect in the context of opinion poll influence. In this case the opinion change is driven by a desire to enhance one's selfesteem by virtue of being vicariously aflqliated with the winner's camp. Although this idea has attained the status of a cultural truism, the extent to which the thrill of victory is derived or anticipated from adopting the opin-

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ions of distant others seems questionable (cf. Bartels, 1988; Kenney and Rice, 1990). Another variety" of momentum has been dubbed "cue-taking" to denote situations in which individuals respond to endorsements of candidates by individuals known to have expertise and credibility. Voters are said to respond to these cues as a means of making the smart or correct choice under conditions of uncertainty. But Bartels (1988, pp. 110-111) also broadens his definition of cue-taking to incorporate situations in which undecided or uncertain voters take cues from perceived public opinion: "The operative logic is, roughly, that '25,000 solid New Hampshirites (probably) can't be too far wrong.'" In both cases the underlying motivation for cue-taking is to make the correct choice, and public opinion simply serves as a cue indicating the most intelligent choice to make~ Although Bartels describes cue-taking as a motivated desire to take cues from well-informed, well-placed, or otherwise credible others, to the extent that perceived public opinion may serve as a cue-giver, this explanation is closely related to the notion of a consensus heuristic in social psychology. The heuristic model suggests that cues about majority views are processed by means of simple schemas or decision rules that people have learned on the basis of past experiences and socialization (Chaiken, 1987); people reason that if many other people think some message or viewpoint is valid, then it is probably correct (Chaiken, 1987; Landy, 1972). Faced with limited information and the motivation to make a wise choice, people use consensus views as a shortcut toward that goal. Unfortunately evidence documenting a consensus heuristic is limited and inconsistent (see, e.g., Axsom, Yates, and Chaiken, 1985; Nisbett and Ross, 1980). A third explanation for momentum rests on the assumption that people may "respond quite unthinkingly to changes in simple political stimuli such as the frequency with which candidates' names appear on television and in the newspaper" (Bartels, 1988, p. 111). In essence, this means people are caught up in a trend as with any fad. S~ial psychological research on the effects of "mere exposure" on liking corroborate the potential for opinion change without changes in cognition (Zajonc, 1968, 1980). Consistent with this explanation, several studies have suggested that people respond more to information about current opinion trends than to current states of opinion (see, e.g., Marsh, 1984; Mutz, 1989; Noelle-Neumann, 1974; Tyson and Kaplowitz, 1977). And finally, one primary-specific reason voters might support a candidate who is leading is to strategically avoid "wasting" their votes, either by voting for a candidate who does not have a chance of winning the nomination, or by voting for a candidate who is not perceived as capable of winning the election in November (see Bartels, 1988). Although some primary voters

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are no doubt capable of the complex calculations necessary to vote strategically, Abramson and colleagues (1990) estimate that strategic voting occurs only around 10 percent of the time. In addition to the four possibilities suggested in efforts to account for the impact of momentum, a fifth possibility drawn from the literature on persuasion eliminates the need for specific incentives or motivations to conform altogether. Cognitive response theories suggest that public opinion cues may induce attitude change by prompting people to mentally rehearse arguments related to the issue position or candidate. As Petty and Cacioppo (1981) have demonstrated, the thoughts that people generate on their own can be as effective in producing opinion changes as messages that originate externally. If a person reads, for example, that an overwhelming majority of people support Bush's policies in the Persian Gulf, he or she is likely to mentally rehearse the possible reasons people have {br supporting Bush's policies. By priming these thoughts, the public opinion cue influences the development of the person's own attitude; arguments in favor of his policies will be more salient and well rehearsed in the individual's mind than those in opposition. Consistent with this explanation, Burnstein and Vinokur (1975) and Burnstein, Vinokur, and Trope (1973) find that opinion movement results from "biased scanning" of arguments for opposing viewpoints. When exposed to the opinions of others, people are prompted to think about the arguments that might have led these others to hold discrepant views. By means of these cognitive responses, people are essentially engaged in a self-persuasion process whereby their own opinions move in the direction of the reasons that would not otherwise have come to mind. As Burnstein and colleagues (1973, p. 244) explain, when a person hears about the opinions of others, this information "does not serve so much to threaten his selfesteem or to legitimize some suppressed yearning but rather induces him to find a reasonable explanation for the difference." Studies of momentum and the influence of publicized poll results have generally emphasized the potential for opinion swings toward leading candidates and issue positions. Nonetheless, inconsistencies in the direction of findings from previous studies compel any theoretical model addressing these phenomena to incorporate the possibility of "boomerang" or "underdog" shifts as well. Disappointingly, most of these theories do not easily lend themselves to inversion; there is no intuitively appealing reason, for example, to expect that one would take pleasure in being on the losing team to accompany the bandwagon explanation. And although there is a burgeoning literature in small group research on mechanisms of minority influence (see, e.g., Moscovici, 1976; Mugny, I982)~ these principles do not translate easily to diffuse representations of mass opinion.

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Cognitive response theories, on the other hand, provide a possible basis for understanding movements toward both minority and majority opinion. In bandwagon studies, shifts in the direction of majority opinion are most likely among citizens with low levels of information or little interest or motivation to think about an issue or candidate (see Geer, i988, 1989; Kaplowitz et al., 1983; Patterson, 1980). This pattern is also precisely what Bartels' study of momentum suggests; expectations influenced vote choice predominantly in the "low information" stage of the contest, that is, at the beginning of the primary season. However, when this same type of information is processed by those with high levels of political knowledge and well-formed political opinions, mass opinion will probably be deemed a rather weak argument for changing one's views. In this ease, cognitive response theory suggests that people responding to these cues are likely to rehearse unfavorable thoughts, producing a boomerang or underdog shift in the direction of the minority view (see, e.g., Petty and Caeioppo, 1979, 1981). Thus whether public opinion cues will result in movement toward portrayed majority or minority views depends on levels of political information and, more proximately, the strength of peoples' commitments to their views. Strong advocates of a candidate or issue position are likely to intensify the strength of their commitment to their original views, while the weakly committed move toward majority opinion. In the aggregate then, impersonal influence could result in what appears to be movement toward majority or minority opinion, or no movement at all depending on the preexisting distribution of committed preferences. Although the cognitive response model has not been applied specifically to the impersonal influence context, it is the most compelling of the potential theoretical explanations thus far. As a psychological mechanism underlying impersonal influence, it is better substantiated by previous research than any of its alternatives. It also has the potential to account for the numerous instances of underdog influence, whereas the other explanations cannot. And finally, the cognitive response model does not rely on the existence of individual motivations; since I seek to explain a phenomenon that occurs partieularly under conditions of low interest and involvement, an explanation that requires little of the public is preferable to one that calls for an active orientation toward candidates or issues. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential for impersonal influence in its most general context, when representations of public opinion are claimed to have a persuasive influence on attitudes toward political candidates and controversial issues. Given the inconsistencies in previous research, the sheer existence of such an impact cannot be assumed. Secondly, I aim to alleviate the ambiguity in interpretations of previous studies

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by using a design well-suited to testing causal propositions. Finally, this study also evaluates alternative mechanisms by which processes of impersonal influence may occur in political settings.

METHODS
This study utilizes three experimental designs embedded within surveys. Cues were inserted in opinion surveys to simulate various underlying motivations to follow diffuse majority opinion. For the sake of brevity, I will describe only one of the designs in full detail. Others will be noted as variations of this original framework. The designs differ primarily in that some provide pretest as well as posttest measures of the dependent variable, and some focus on attitudes toward issues while others focus on candidates. Two of the experiments were embedded in national surveys providing a representative population of subjects; employing the rigor of an experimental design in combination with the representativeness of national surveys made it possible to overcome many of the limitations of previous research (see Piazza, Sniderman, and Tetlock, 1989). The remaining study involved a local campus sample that served two additional purposes. Although the representativeness of subjects was sacrificed, the local context allowed representations of opinion to be more overt; rather than merely alluding to trends, cues were presented in terms of poll findings that clearly identified trends or states of opinion. This approach was feasible with campus respondents because it was possible to recontact and thoroughly debrief respondents after their participation in the study. The local setting also made it possible to examine the effects of representations of opinion on attitudes toward candidates in an upcoming local election.

The National Experiments

The two experiments embedded within national telephone surveys attempted to simulate the effects that representations of opinion might have on attitudes toward social issues. Beyond simple documentation of impersonal influence, these studies also examined potential mechanisms by which these effects might occur. Experiment 1 involved 480 respondents interviewed as part of a larger, half-hour nationwide survey conducted by the staff of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center. As with all of the studies in this project, random assignment to experimental conditions was carried out using a computerassisted telephone interviewing system. This study was comprised of three factors forming a 3 2 3 betweengroup design. One factor manipulated respondents' levels of commitment

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to their opinions by using issues that varied greatly in terms of the expected amount of commitment to issue stands that would be elicited. Although this kind of factor has gone by a variety of names including immediacy, familiarity, issue importance, and involvement (e.g., Campbell, 1968), here it is referred to as "commitment" to designate the extent to which respondents are expected to have highly committed opinions before encountering the experimental manipulations. Based on pretests, three issues were chosen to represent high, medium, and low levels of issue commitment. These issues were, from high to low commitment, the death penalty, whether election ballots should be printed in more than one language, and the elimination of the electoral college. The second, two-level factor consisted of "pro" or "con" cues attached to each issue. In the "pro" death penalty condition, for example, respondents received cues indicating that many people were in favor of the death penalty before giving interviewers their own opinions. A third factor in the experiment indicated the type of motivation emphasized in the cue. Since respondents in the national experiment could not be thoroughly debriefed over the telephone, the cues did not overtly misrepresent distributions of opinion concerning these issues. The cues were used, however, to appeal to various underlying motivations to shift attitudes toward majority opinion. Drawing on Bartels' (1988) suggested motivations for supporting frontrunners in the context of presidential ~primaries, three different motivations were emphasized in the cues. "Win" cues emphasized that one particular side of the issue debate would be the inevitable victor and thus capitalized on respondents' desire to be on the winning side. ~1To approximate the motivation to conform to majority opinion in order to be correct, "smart" cues emphasized that many expert sources endorsed a particular position. ~ This particular operationalization directly addressed Bartels' cue-taking explanation and indirectly addressed the notion of a consensus heuristic. 13 Finally, "trend" cues portrayed the current trend in a particular direction, without commenting specifically on the sagacity of a particular position or the likely winning side. 14 It would be di~cult to assign a specific cue to represent tile cognitive response model since it suggests that any kind of information about the opinions of others should induce cognitive responses that ultimately shift individuals' opinions. However, one prediction specific to the cognitive response model is that high commitment issues should elicit not only lesser movement in the direction of the cue (as all of the other explanations would predict), but movement in the direction opposite that of the cue. Early in the half-hour survey, each respondent received a cue representing one of the 18 conditions suggested by the 3 2 3 design. Following the cue, all respondents were asked for their own opinions on the issue and

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how committed they were to their position (see Appendix A for exact question and cue wording).ls Although in principle the three types of cues each represent a distinct underlying motivation, it is likely that manipulating one aspect of perceptions inadvertently influences perceptions of another characteristic of the same issue. For example, suggesting that one issue position is the likely winner may make people think that the current trend is also in that direction. Or, from information that the trend is moving in a particular direction, people may infer that this is also the smarter position to hold. To control for potential confounding of motivations, each respondent also received two follow-up questions dealing with the two types of cues that were not received. If a person received a trend cue, for example, the person would then be asked follow-up questions dealing with whether or not he/ she feels his/her position is the "smart" position to take, that is, the position that would be endorsed by experts, and whether he/she feels this position will ultimately "win" the public debate.~6 The follow-up questions served two purposes. First, they controlled for the likely effects that the cues could have on other than the intended manipulated motivations.17 As covariates, they also served to increase the efficiency of the model by incorporating nonexperimental influences that might result from projection and related phenomena (see Franklin, 1991). Random assignment ensured that projection could not bias the results of these experimental studies; nonetheless, it was useful in estimating the model to be able to eliminate external factors and to be able to assess the strength of these particular influences. In addition to the one cue and issue opinion series asked of each respondent near the beginning of the half-hour survey, respondents were also asked about the two issues for which they were not given experimental cues in a series of issue questions near the end of the survey. Identical follow-up questions asked about the level of commitment to this position and the respondent's perception of the "smart," "trendy," and "winning" positions. These answers served as baseline estimates of opinions toward these issues and perceptions of opinion trends that would exist without experimental interventions. National experiment 2 followed a similar pattern using a 2 x 2 x 3 design with two issues, handgun regulation and the use of primates for medical research, and the same three types of cues with pro and con manipulations. This study involved a total of 648 respondents.

Results for National Experiments Experiment 1. Table 1 shows the means for each of the 18 conditions in experiment 1, with high scores indicating greater opposition to each issue.

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a

TABLE 1. National Experiment 1: Raw Opinion Scores by C o n d i t i o n Issue/Commitment High (Employ death penalty) pro/con 2.17/1.91 2.00/1.90 2.46/1.95 Moderate (Print multitingual ballots) pro/con 2.95/3.00 3.08/2.55 2.67/2.68

Cue Type Smart Trend Win

Low (Eliminate electoral college) pro/con 2.61/2.91 2.60/2.73 2.57/3.04

~Low scores indicate greater support for issue statement on 5-point scale, high scores greater opposition. "Pro" cue scores indicate that respondents in this conditionreceived cues advocatingthe stated issue positions, while "'con"cues indicatethat they receivedcues opposing the position.

Manipulation checks on levels of commitment to these opinions confirmed that in the absence of experimental cues, the three issues represent a range of precommitment to issue positions ranging from the death penalty (8.19) to multilingual ballots (7.59) to the electoral college (6.76). A glance at Table 1 suggests a general pattern strongly dependent on the level of precommitment to an issue position. For questions concerning the electoral college, the low-commitment issue, respondents receiving the pro-elimination cue were consistently more positive toward this position than those receiving the anti-elimination cue. This pattern is reversed with the high-commitment issue, the death penalty'. Here, by contrast, the means show a consistent pattern of greater opposition when exposed to the pro-death penalty cue, indicating a backlash in opposition to the direction suggested by the interviewer's cue. For the third, moderate commitment, issue results suggested a mixture of these two patterns with negligible shifts in the direction of cues in two cases, and a shift in opposition to the cues in the third comparison. The significance of these results was tested using analysis of variance including each of the three experimental factors and three covariates.~8 The results of this analysis confirm the general pattern observed in Table 1. In addition to the differences in opinion accounted for by the choice of issue, Table 2 shows a significant interaction between issue and the direction of the cue. The trend covariate also accounts for a tremendous amount of variance in attitudes toward these issues. This finding jibes well with previous findings indicating that people generally perceive opinion trends as consistent with their own opinions (see, e.g., Brady and Johnston, 1987; Mutz, 1989). The nature of the cue, however, appears to matter very little. Subjects responded to smart, trend and win cues in a similar fashion.

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TABLE 2. National Experiment 1: Opinion by Issue, Direction of Cue, and Cue Type
DF

Mean Square 13.07 2.90 .10 5.77 1.51 .41 1.05 3.15 61.77 5.21

F 7.76* ** 1.74 .05 3.43* .90 .24 .63 1.87 36.66"* * 3.09

Main Effects Issue Cue Type Direction of Cue 2-way Interactions Issue by Direction Issue by Cue Type Cue Type by Direction 3-way Interaction Issue by Cue Type by Direction Covariates Smart Trend Win *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

2 2 1 2 4 2 4 1 1 1

Figure 1 summarizes the results of experiment i by plotting the means for pro and con conditions for each issue, collapsing across the three types of cues. Issues are placed along the horizontal axis to reflect the level of precommitment to issue opinions in control conditions. The directional cues clearly made a difference in responses to both the high- and lowcommitment issues; respondents receiving cues for low-commitment issues were moved in the direction of that cue; respondents in the high-commitment issue condition, on the other hand, did not feel compelled to follow the suggested opinion; in fact, their opinions shifted away from the direction of the cue received, indicating not only a resistance to majority influence, but also the rehearsal or scanning of counterattitudinal thoughts. Using these same data, it is also possible to test for indirect effects of opinion cues. For example, if information about the current opinion trend influenced perceptions of the wisdom of that position as the consensus heuristic suggests, one would expect to find differences by experimental condition in the extent to which that position was perceived to be the "smart" one to take. Using the questions asked directly after each opinion was elicited, it was possible to test {br potential transference of this kind.~9 Results suggested little crossover among the various cues; cues concerning expert opinion, for example, did not generally influence perceptions of the likely winner or current trend. The death p e n a l t y - - t h e high-commitment issue--represents the interesting exception. For this issue the direction of cues presented to respondents influenced their perceptions of the

IMPERSONALINFLUENCE
0.2 "Co~,~lssue Cue 0.1 " "~ Cue

105
0.2

0.1

No Change

0.0

0.0

-0.1 u o~

-0.1

-0.2 6.5

..... l. 7.5

. 8.5

0.2

Preeommitment to Issue Position

Note: Precommitment levels represent mean responses in the control conditions on a 1 to 10 scale. Attitude change scores represent the deviation from average scores for that issue by pro or con condition on 5-point scales where low scores represent greater support for the issue statement, and high scores greater opposition.
FIG. 1. Attitude change as a function of public opinion cues and level of precommitment to issue positions

current trend and the likely winning side of the issue debate, Although their own opinions were influenced in a direction opposite that of the experimental cues, their perceptions of trends and likely winners moved in the direction suggested by the cues. It is particularly important to note that contrary to expectations based on the consensus heuristic, neither the "trend" cues nor the "win" cues elicited perceptions of that issue position as one more likely to be endorsed by experts. In short, public opinion cues that did not explicitly address the issue of expert opinion were not interpreted as indicative of the wise or "smart" choice to make.

Experiment 2. The results of experiment 2 followed a pattern similar to that of the low-commitment issue in experiment 1. For both issues, responses indicated movement in the proposed direction of the experimental

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TABLE 3. National Experiment 2: Raw Opinion Scores by Conditiona Issue/Commitment High (Implement stricter handgun control) pro/con 2.11/2.67 2.35/2.41 2.30/2.32 Moderate (Use primates for medical research) pro/con 2.70/2.91 2.68/2.77 2.55/2.82

Cue Type Smart Trend Win

~Low scores indicate greater support for issue statement on 5-point scale, high scores greater opposition. "Pro"cue scores indicate that respondents in this condition received cues advocating the stated issue positions, while "con"cues indicate that they received cues opposing the position.

cues. As Table 3 shows, all six comparisons produced mean responses in the "con" conditions more unfavorable than in the "pro" conditions, although these differences were small in some cases. Levels of precommitment to opinions were in the anticipated direction with the handgun issue eliciting higher levels of commitment than opinions on primate research (means were 7.90 and 6.98, respectively). Unlike experiment 1, however, responses indicated movement in the direction of the experimental cues for both high- and low-commitment issues. This difference could result from the fact that commitment levels were greater with the high-commitment issue in experiment 1 than the high-commitment issue in experiment 2, although the differences were not substantial. Given the reduced range of precommitment represented by the issues in experiment 2, it is not surprising to find that the analysis of variance showed a main effect for the direction of the cue as opposed to the interaction between issue and direction of cue seen in experiment 1. As Table 4 illustrates, there were surprising differences in the role of the covariates. In experiment 1, the perception of an opinion trend was most strongly related to stated opinions. In experiment 2, trend perceptions also played a significant role, but this influence was dwarfed by the importance of the choice perceived to be the "smartest"; that is, the opinion perceived to reflect the opinions of experts. A tremendous amount of variance in opinions was explained by the fact that people rationalize their own position as the one most likely to be endorsed by experts, in addition to being the opinion consistent with the current trend. Again, as in the first experiment, there was little evidence that respondents inferred from cues about trends that a particular position was the wiser one to adopt.

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TABLE 4. National Experiment 2: Opinion by Issue, Direction of Cue, and Cue Type
DF

t07

Mean Square 10.39 1.31 7.28 .11 .81 1.66 .96 185.61 7.39 1.19

F 5.52* .70 3.86* .06 .43 .88 .51 98.49"** 3.92* .63

Main Effects Issue Cue Type Direction of Cue 2-way Interactions Issue by Direction Issue by Cue Type Cue Type by Direction 3-way Interaction Issue by Cue Type by Direction Covariates Smart Trend Win *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

1 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1

The Local Experiment

In an effort to increase the external validity of these studies by locating the judgments within a real-world political context, the local experiment examined the effects of poll results on opinions concerning candidates in a local mayoral race. Using an adaptation of a pretest posttest design (see, e.g., Ceci and Kain, 1982), 105 undergraduate students were assigned to one of three experimental conditions during the week preceding a local election. Several weeks prior to this time, the students had been asked by their instructor to indicate their preferences in the upcoming mayoral race while completing a paper and pencil questionnaire addressing unrelated topics (see Appendix A for exact question wording). These data were used to construct a baseline measure of vote intention. ~ The week preceding the election, these same students were contacted by telephone from the University of Wisconsin Survey Center "as part of a survey of city residents to find out their attitudes toward the upcoming mayor's race." Those who agreed to participate were then read one of three randomly assigned cues indicating either that one candidate or another now had a commanding lead, or that the two were neck and neck according to "the results of several independent polls." The cue was then followed by a series of questions similar to the pretest questions. ~ In each case, responses were used to create a 9-point scale ranging from those "'very favorable" toward one candidate to those "very favorable" toward the other. ~

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TABLE 5. Local Experiment: Candidate Preference by Conditiona Public Opinion Cue (Pre/Post Preference) Candidate Preference Sensenbrenner Soglin Undecided Sensenbrenner 40/54 31/17 29/29 Soglin 29/23 23/51 49/26 Tie 40/43 34/37 26/20

(n)

(35)

(35)

(35)

~Entries represent column percentages beforeand after public opinion cues were administered. Samplecomprisedof 105 undergraduate students.

Results for the Local Experiment

A preliminary examination of results suggested that the bogus poll resuits did influence individual opinions. As Table 5 demonstrates, the pretest results showed virtually no pattern with respect to candidate preferences, while the posttest data showed a clear pattern of preference for candidates corresponding to the cues received by respondents {~om the confederate pollsters. Although this aggregate evidence does not confirm the process of change at an individual level, it does suggest a pattern of majority influence, even using crude measures of shifts in preferences from one candidate to another. The percentage support for one candidate increased 14 percent due to the cue suggesting he was supported by a majority, and support for the other candidate increased 28 percent following the cue giving him the lead. By taking advantage of the full 9-point scale, it is possible to look for more subtle changes in the intensity of support for candidates. The full experiment was analyzed as a repeated measure analysis of variance with one three-level between-subjects factor (public opinion cues) and one twolevel within-subjects factors (pretest/posttest). As anticipated, these analyses indicated a significant between-condition effect based on the cue received by the respondent (p < .05), z~'~ Movement was clearly in the direction of majority opinion as one would expect given the notoriously low level of college students' interest in politics (e. g., Allen, 1965; Crutchfield, 1955; Luchins, 194.5; Walker and Heyns, 1967; Weiner, 1958).
DISCUSSION

Tocqueville argued that as the notion of equality spread, the power of newspapers would grow by "speak[ing] to each of its readers in the name of

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all the rest" (p. 520). Indeed, the growth of mass feedback technologies, rooted in strong beliefs in egalitarian principles, has resulted in a more powerful media. Although this power is far from that wielded by Tocqueville's tyrannical majorities, it rernains important in a variety of political contexts. Since the relationship between media coverage and perceptions of others' opinions has been well documented, this study focused instead on the more controversial question of the impact these perceptions have once relayed to the public. The results of these experiments suggest first and foremost that the representations of dit}use opinion so often relayed to the public by mass media have the potential to influence subsequent public opinions. These effects are likely to vary, both in extent and in direction, based on levels of commitment to candidates or issue positions. It is not necessary for media to portray the opinions of a reference group or close social contacts in order to facilitate impersonal influence. Although these studies do not provide a critical test of the mechanism driving impersonal influence, the evidence in these experiments stacks up strongly in favor of a cognitive response-based interpretation. There is little support for the notion of a consensus heuristic; cues regarding the opinions of others did not cause respondents to infer that these positions were wiser than the alternatives. What's more, the "smart" cues did not distinguish themselves in influence as one would expect if the desire for "correct" opinions were the proximate cause and primary force for change. A second factor in favor of the cognitive response model is that unlike the motivations commonly used to explain the effects of momentum, cognitive response theories can provide explanations for the observed movement in the direction of minority as well as majority opinion. Neither the bandwagon, cue-taking, nor contagion-based explanations can accomplish this without resorting to some alternative theoretical model. It is possible, of course, that the psychological processes driving movement toward majority" opinion are fundamentally different from those driving shifts in the direction of minority opinion (see Woli, 1987). Nonetheless, a more parsimonious explanation favors the cognitive response model. Interestingly, the "bandwagon" explanation, the mechanism typically touted as the primary muscle behind the influence of representations of public opinion (e. g., Bartels, 1988), appears the least promising of all in the context of issue opinions. The "win" cue proved unremarkable as an experimental manipulation; more importantly, perceptions of the likely winning side of an issue debate did not even co-vary with respondents' issue opinions, unlike perceptions of the trendy and expert issue positions. This evidence obviously cannot speak to the question of candidate bandwagons. Although associations with winning candidates may well be more rewarding

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than associations with winning issue positions, the number of people deriving some tangible benefit from alignment with a candidate is still likely to be limited. These findings generally support popular assumptions about the influence of representations of public opinion, though not for the reasons popularly assumed. Nonetheless, a few caveats are in order with respect to the experimental context. First of all, manipulating perceptions of public opinion through cues inserted in telephone interviews may attach greater salience and awareness to this information than is generally the case. Such information is certainly widely available through mass media and well-remembered among the general public, but it is doubtful it would be as immediately salient in peoples' minds had it not been mentioned directly before the issue opinion or vote intention was requested. On the other hand, these brief cues had to compete with the ongoing flow of political information surrounding these issues and candidates. Furthermore, the credibility of representations of opinion gleaned from multiple news sources may be greater than that produced by an interviewer's cue alone. A second cautionary note stems from the fact that the design of this study cannot decisively rule out group identification as a potential cause of some of the observed shifts, even in the "trend" and "win" conditions. Although cues presenting the opinions of "people" or "citizens and community leaders" seem unlikely to evoke group identification, the reference group "Americans" is implicit in these designations when referring to opinions on some matter of national importance. But even if these cues are interpreted to refer to Americans, available survey data indicate that few people volunteer "Americans" as a salient group label. However, this may well vary by issue area; for example, one would expect it to be more common with respect to foreign policy issues, a situation in which world opinion would serve as the universe, and American opinion as a salient reference group. Even more importantly, one may question to what extent these shifts represent true shifts of opinion, or merely efforts to satisfy the survey interviewers. In most survey situations every effort is made to eliminate potential extraneous influences. It is well known that researchers' expectations can be communicated to respondents unintentionally, and typically one wants to avoid demand characteristics and appeals to social desirability. However, by deliberately minimizing pressures on the respondent, researchers have severely restricted the range of possible situations in which people's attitudes and behaviors may be studied (Piazza et al., 1989). Rather than minimize such influences, the point of these experiments has been to systematize them, and to use them to simulate real-world contexts in which people confront representations of the opinions of others. For better or worse, the "real world" that researchers seek to understand is

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replete with demand characteristics and appeals to social desirability. To the extent that these are survey-specific influences, they confound the purposes of this study. However, the fact that respondents were willing to confront interviewers by disagreeing with them on an issue, and yet participants in replicate conditions reacted positively to cues for other issues, suggests that people are not afraid to dissent from interviewer cues if so moved. Similar studies embedding experimental cues within surveys have found respondents surprisingly resistant to influence, and selective in the cues to which they will respond (see Piazza et al., 1989). The shifts observed in these studies did not result from finding particular sources or arguments more persuasive than others, so much as from the availability of cues of any kind to guide opinion formation and change. People seem to be looking for some cue--any cue, of any type--to guide them in forming opinions. In the case of movement toward majority opinion, many of the observed shifts probably resulted from opinion formation rather than change. When highly committed individuals respond with a shift toward minority views, the effect is more likely one of reinforcement or intensification of opinion. Although neither of these processes is the same thing as opinion change per se, they remain significant in terms of real-world consequences. The results of the experiments square well with Bartels' (1988) survey evidence demonstrating that momentum in presidential primaries is at its strongest early in campaigns when information levels are low and uncertainty is greatest. They also help explain some of the inconsistencies in previous research documenting both "underdog" and "bandwagon" patterns, and the many null findings in situations where these two patterns may cancel one another out. These findings should also caution those who hasten to make normative judgments about the "contentless dynamics" (Johnston et al., 1990) of impersonal influence processes. In the context of research on momentum and the publication of poll results in particular, normative evaluations have been consistently negative, describing impersonal influence as the antithesis of ideal democratic decision making (e. g., Brady and Johnston, 1987). Characterizing such influence as an empty-headed response to the sensationalized media horse race may be off the mark. To the extent that public opinion cues stimulate greater thinking about issue arguments, public fascination with the opinions of others may contribute to substantive political thinking. ~5 Of course, this idea rests on the assumption that there exists a culturally given pool of arguments speaking to each alternative that individuals may draw upon (see Burnstein and Sentis, 1981). The impact of public opinion cues may be moderated, in turn, by the availability and persuasiveness of existing arguments on opposing sides of an issue debate.

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Acknowledgments. I would like to thank Dick Merelman, Jeff Mondak, Albert Gunther, Joe Soss, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful suggestions.
APPENDIX A. Construction of Measures for National Experiments EXPERIMENT 1
A. Issue Opinion Sequences (each R received only one of the following cues in one of its (3 3 2) 18 possible permutations).

Death Penalty
Next I'd like to ask you a question about the death penalty. CUES (each R received only one of the following): "Smart" cue: Many criminal psychologists, both liberals and conservatives alike, are (in favor of/opposed to) the death penalty. "Trend" cue: We hear about more and more people every day who are (in favor ot~opposed to) the death penalty. "Win" cue: Many citizens and community leaders on both sides of this issue are convinced that the death penalty will (never) succeed in winning the support of the American people and its leaders.

Multilingual Ballots
Next I'd like to ask you a question about printing election ballots in more than one language in communities where people speak multiple languages. CUES (each R received only one of the following): "Smart" cue: Many election officials, both Republicans and Democrats alike, are (in favor of/opposed to) the idea of printing election ballots in more than one language. "Trend" cue" We hear about more and more people every day who are (in favor of/opposed to) the idea of printing election ballots in more than one language. "Win" cue: Many citizens and community leaders on both sides of this issue, are convinced that the move to print election ballots in more than one language will (never) succeed in winning the support of the American people and its leaders.

Electoral College
Next I'd like to ask you a question about the electoral college. CUES (each R received only one of the following): "Smart" cue: Many political scientists, both Republicans and Democrats alike, are (in favor of/opposed to) the idea of eliminating the electoral college. "Trend" cue: We hear about more and more people every day who are (in favor of/opposed to) the idea of eliminating the electoral college. "Win" cue: Many citizens and community leaders on both sides of this issue are convinced that the idea of eliminating the electoral college will (never) succeed in winning the support of the American people and its leaders.

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Issue Opinion
How about you? Are you for or against (insert issue here)? Is that strongly for/ against or somewhat for/against? Coded as 5-point scale where high scores indicate greater opposition. B. COVARIATES:Each cue sequence was followed by two questions corresponding to the cues not used (e.g., ff R received "Smart"-cue, then they received "Trend" and "Win" covariate questions for the same issue). "Smart": How likely do you think it is that most (criminal psychologist/election officials/political scientists) would agree with your position on this issue? Would you say this is very likely, somewhat likely, or not at all likely to happen? "Trend": Thinking about the United States as a whole, do you think that public support for your position on this issue is gaining support, losing support, or staying about the same? "Win": How likely do you think it is that your position will succeed in winning the support of the American people and its leaders? Would you say this is very likely, somewhat likely, or not at all likely to happen? By taking into account the respondent's own opinion, covariates are recoded so that they represent the positions the respondent perceives to be gaining ground, likely to win, and smartest. They are coded in the same direction as the issue opinion questions, with high scores representing greater perceived opposition.
C. CONTROL CONDITIONS: For the control measures, respondents were asked approximately 25 minutes later in the interview to respond to the ISSUE OPINION questions alone for the two issues for which they did not receive experimental cues. All three covariate questions were used at this point to estimate baseline levels of these perceptions.

EXPERIMENT 2
A. Issue Opinion Sequences (each R received only one of the following sequences in one of its (2 3 2) 12 possible permutations).

Use of Primates in Medical Research

Next I'd like to ask you a question about using primates such as monkeys for medical research. CUES (each R received only one of the following): "Smart" cue: Many scientists are (in favor of/opposed to) using primates for medical research. "Trend" cue: We hear about more and more people every day who are (in favor of/opposed to) using primates for medical research. "'Win" cue: Many people on both sides of this issue are convinced that primates will (inevitably continue to/soon no longer) be used for medical research.

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Handgun Control
Next I'd like to ask you a question about stricter handgun control. CUES (each R received only one of the following): "Smart" cue: Many law enforcement officials are (in favor of/opposed to) stricter handgun control. "Trend" cue: We hear about more and more people every day who are (in favor of/opposed to) stricter handgun control. "Win" cue: Many people on both sides of this issue are convinced that we will (soon/never) have stricter handgun control in the United States. Issue OPINION: How about you? Do you favor or oppose (insert issue here)? Is that somewhat (favor/oppose) or strongly (favor/oppose)? Coded same as in experiment t.
B. COVARIATES; Each cue sequence was followed by two questions corresponding to the cues not used as in experiment 1. "Smart": How likely do you think it is that most (law enforcement officials/ economists) would agree with your position on this issue? Would you say this is very likely, somewhat likely, or not at all likely? "Trend": Do yon think that public support for your position on this issue is gaining support, losing support, or staying about the same? "Win": How likely do you think it is that your position on this issue will succeed in winning the support of the American people and its leaders? Would you say this is very likely, somewhat likely, or not at all likely to happen?

Covariates are recoded based on own issue position as described for experiment 1.

APPENDIX B. Construction of Measures for Local Experiment

PRETEST (self-administered): Which candidate do you think you will vote for in the Madison mayor's race? a. Joe Sensenbrenner; b. Paul Soglin; c. Not sure/ undecided. How strongly do you feel about your candidate? a. very favorable; b. favorable; c. only mildly favorable; d. not sure/undecided, POSTTEST (administered by telephone with several warm-up questions preceding the following items): Each R received one of the following cues: The results of several independent polls all show that Paul Soglin now has a commanding lead in the mayor's race. The results of several independent polls all show that Joe Sensenbrenner now has a commanding lead in the mayor's race. The results of several independent polls all show that Paul Soglin and Joe Sensenbrenner are running neck and neck in the mayor's race. VOTE INTENTION: Which candidate are you planning to vote for in the upcoming mayor's race? Joe Sensenbrenner, Paul Soglin, or are you undecided?

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Right now, how strongly do you feel about your candidate? Would you say you feel very favorable, favorable, or just mildly favorable toward your candidate?

NOTES
1. Incorrect predictions of election outcomes, for example, have been seized as evidence that polls are not self-fulfilling prophesies. It is, of course, impossible to know in naturally occurring contexts how well respective candidates might have done in the absence of such poll reports, or what effects the poll reports may have had on the cumulative chain of events. Nonetheless, industry representatives such as Gallup concluded as early as 1936 that "the American public, it appears, clings too tenaciously to its views to shed them and follow the winner" (Gallup and Rae, 1936, p. 39). 2. For example, in a study using bogus poll data referring to a national college sample, Tyson and Kaplowitz (1977) found no appreciable movement toward representations of majority opinion when subjects anonymously reported their attitudes on relatively highcommitment issues. Atkin (1969), on the other hand, tbund that bogus findings from a national poll of college students influenced preferences for both candidates and issues in his local student sample. Kaplowitz and colleagues (1983) also found some conformity to majority opinion in an experiment using student subjects and poll results ostensibly from students at the same university. The authors found significant influence on attitudes toward low-commitment issues, but no effects on opinions involving high-commitment issues (cf. Navazio, 1977; Ceci and Kain, 1982). 3. The one exception is a study that did use national poll results as stimuli and obtained significant results. Using student subjects and a pretest posttest design with a control group, AUard (1941) found significant shifts in the direction of findings from a national poll. 4. In the United States, this concern has surfaced in the form of congressional pleas for social responsibility by the media as well as several laws enacted at the state level to make exit polling difficult to impossible to accomplish (see Milavsky, 1985). 5. This is particularly the case with respect to aspirational reference groups (see, e.g., Hyman and Singer, 1968), but may also be said of reference groups more generally. Indeed, Shibutani (1955) has argued that the introduction and popularity of the reference group concept stems from its minor refinement on long familiar theories. Specifically, it incorporated the possibility that people "sometimes use standards of groups in which they are not recognized members, sometimes of groups in which they have never participated directly, and sometimes of groups that do not exist at all" (Shibutani, 1955, p. 565). 6. I specify "original source" here so as not to confuse the origins of the information--for example, members of a public who hold opinions--with the source conveying information to others (e.g., a newspaper story). 7. This should be understood to include both positive and negative identification with groups. 8. When the opinions of specific groups are represented by the media, they may well influence readers" or viewers" opinions (see, e.g., Price, 1989), and they often represent the opinions of groups outside the realm of any given individual's personal experiences just by virtue of their sheer size. Nonetheless, most such examples would not satisfy the second criterion for impersonal influence; that is, that their power reside in numbers rather than in the attractiveness of a group identity. 9. For example, in her study of the effects of poll results in Britain, Marsh (1984) considers movement toward majority opinion to be synonymous with "conformity effects." Noelle-

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Neumann (1974) also uses Asch's confbrmity paradigm as the theoretical basis of her spiral of silence theory, which explicitly depends on a fear of social isolation. There are a few notable exceptions to this generalization, primarily theories that are forerunners of the consensus heuristic described below, For example, Festinger's social comparison theory suggests an explanation for conformity that does not require tangible social pressures to be present. He argued that when there is no physical reality basis for establishing the validity of one's beliefs, then people are dependent on the beliefs of others in order to determine the "correct" choice (see, e.g., Festinger, 1950, 1954). Similarly, when Deutsch and Gerard (1955) distinguished normative from informational social influence, they pointed to a socialized tendency to be influenced by information about others" views: "From birth on, we learn that the perceptions and judgments of others are frequently reliable sources of evidence about reality" (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955, p. 635). Definitions of "winning" or "success" may vary by issue. In one experiment this was operationalized in terms of winning the support of public opinion and policy makers, and in another, becoming actual policy. Pretests were used to establish the sources perceived to be most expert for each issue. This cue is not entirely consistent with the necessary and sufficient conditions for impersonal influence since the experts named might serve as reference groups. The "smart" cue was operationalized in this fashion for a couple of reasons. First, it was consistent with the major thrust of Bartels' (1988) description of cue-taking. Although the single cue could not directly address both cue-taking as a response to credible cue-givers and the consensus heuristic, it capitalized on the need to choose correctly, the underlying motivation central to both mechanisms. In addition, with this approach it was still possible to examine the consensus heuristic. In order to address whether people infer that a position is wise on the basis of trends or numbers alone, separate analyses were done on the effects of cues indicating a trend or likely winner on perceptions of which position experts would endorse. It is important to note--particularly in the case of the "win" and "smart cues"--that these manipulations do not address whether people will infer that a position is correct or winning based solely on information about diflhse opinion. In some cases this type of information may be spelled out for the reader/viewer, but here it is largely assumed in order to tap these specific motivations. Interviewing was stopped at 480 respondents. Eight cases were dropped due to incomplete data, Cell sizes ranged from 19 to 37, with an average cell size of 26. Although questions were asked in terms of own position, they were recoded to take into account which direction the respondeut's own position was. Thus the smart, trend and win covariates actually" represented the positions respondents perceived to be smartest, trendiest, and most winning (see Appendix A for details). In the real world, of course, it is likely that the influence of majority opinion may be brought about by combinations of these motivations and inferences that naturally occur together. For experimental purposes, however, efforts have been made to separate them. Mean values of control condition levels of the smart, trend and win perceptions were substituted for missing values of experimental covariates. These tests were accomplished using several analyses of variance for each issue, with perceptions of the smart, trendy and winning positions serving as the dependent variables, and Type of Cue and Direction of Cue serving as the independent variables. Measures serving as manipulation checks (e.g., the trend perception in response to manipulation of the trend cue) were omitted from these analyses. Questions forming these indicators were tagged onto a computer-graded midterm examination as ungraded questions on class members' attitudes toward politics and public affairs.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

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21. In the self-administered pretest, respondents were presented with two candidate options and a "Not sure/undecided" option in the initial question on candidate preference. In the telephone interview, respondents who did not initially choose a candidate were asked if they leaned toward a particular candidate. Those who did lean in some direction were classified on the 9-point scale along with those who chose a candidate in the pretest but claimed they were even less than "mildly favorable" toward that candidate. 22. Interviews were carried out over a two-day period during which time the participants" course did not meet so as to avoid possible contamination from finding out others had also been surveyed. At the next class meeting, students were debriefed and asked for permission to use the information they provided as part of the study. This procedure resulted in 105 respondents in total, with 35 subjects having complete pre- and posttest data in each of the three conditions. During debriefing, students expressed no knowledge or suspicion of the confederate pollsters. 23. Box's M indicated that the variance/covariance matrices were equal across all levels of the between-subjects factor, a necessary assumption for this type of design. 24, Slight differences between the pretest and posttest scales also could have produced systematic differences in the way people responded; however, one would expect systematic differences in a single direction across all cue conditions rather than a pattern of differences dependent on the type of cue received. Likewise, intervening information may have influenced respondent attitudes during the three weeks between the pre and posttests, but it is unlikely to have affected students differentially across the three experimental conditions. It should also be noted that this race was a nonpartisan election, meaning that the traditional cues of party identification were absent as guidelines, thus making other "cues" such as public opinion more important. 25. Even in situations in which claims about public opinion are entirely one-sided, so long as a range of commitment levels exists within a population, these cues should elicit thoughts bearing on both sides of an issue.

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