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Are survey items comparable across linguistic groups? As the largest minority in the U.S., Latinos are the focus of increasing attention from survey researchers interested in understanding their political attitudes and behavior. To that end, scholars have relied on a growing repository of survey data to measure a wide array of constructs among Latinos, including political identity, political sophistication, policy attitudes, and political values. However, because these constructs and their attendant measures were primarily developed and tested on English-speaking populations, it is reasonable to expect discrepancies in the performance of these items among a bilingual population like Latinos. In particular, survey items may not capture the same political construct across English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Latinos because the same items may mean different things to both language groups. Using structural equations modeling (SEM), this paper tests the invariance of political constructs across English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Latinos. By relying on commonly used data sets, such as the Latino National Political Survey (1989-1990), the Multi-City Survey of Urban Inequality (1992-1994), and the National Survey of Latinos (2004), this paper tests whether survey measures in English are equivalent to survey measures in Spanish. In this way, the paper aims to facilitate the development of constructs and survey items that more faithfully reflect the linguistic parameters of an increasingly diverse U.S. society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been much research on social desirability effects, most of this discussion has been confined to methodological issues related to survey design and implementation. However, social desirability effects and the willingness to express “true” attitudes is a phenomenon that plagues pubic opinion absent of survey research, especially when it comes to articulating attitudes about race. Since the 1960s, it has become taboo to discuss race and racism and to convey ideas that do not conform to equality among all people. We argue, however, that the unwillingness to discuss these ideas does not mean that they do not exist. We believe that racist ideologies are just below the surface of many whites who, for fear of ridicule, do not express them freely. We also believe that, when people have their beliefs validated, i.e. when they encounter others who share in their beliefs, they will express their true racial attitudes. Finally, we believe that the willingness to express these beliefs will be greater when the racial attitudes of the individual have been validated by an African American. To test our assumptions, we first conduct a content analysis of debates surrounding several racial issues. We find that the media have a tendency to over represent the views of black conservatives. We argue that the overrepresentation of black conservatives in the news leads to a distortion of the true public opinion of African Americans. As a result, the public encounters a view of African American public opinion that is much more conservative than it is in actuality. We hypothesize that the over representation of black conservatives enables whites to feel comfortable about expressing their true racial attitudes since many of their beliefs have been validated by (prominent) blacks. Thus, the second part of the study experimentally tests the above hypothesis. Specifically, we examine whether encountering a black conservative espousing a racially conservative ideas causes an individual to be more likely to express racially conservative attitudes. Moreover, we examine what impact this has on attitudes towards public policies aimed at racial equality. This study allows us to explore the dynamics and boundaries of social desirability using an example individuals encounter in everyday life. Moreover, this study illustrates the role the media play in enabling individuals to express their true beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do happier people participate more? Controlling for a variety of determinants, whichcandidates do happier people tend to support when they do participate? The literature on turnoutand vote choice in the American context is one of the most theoretically and methodologicallyrich in political science. Observable, or easily measurable, traits like education, income, partyidentification, and race have all been shown to bear heavily on the decision to turn out andsubsequent vote choice. Latent attitudinal characteristics, including levels of interpersonal trustand internal efficacy, have also been incorporated into individual-level models of politicalbehavior. Yet within the voting behavior literature generally, and within studies that considerlatent attitudinal traits more specifically, very little research has sought to incorporate subjectivelife satisfaction into models of turnout and vote choice. This may be due largely to the nearlyexclusive study of life satisfaction as a dependent variable - i.e., to this point political scientists,economists, and sociologists have concentrated on how institutional performance and otherpolitical arrangements bear on individuals' life satisfaction, or happiness. By turning tohappiness as an independent variable, we hope to add nuance to the literatures on both votingand life satisfaction. We find that individuals who are more satisfied with their lives are morelikely to participate politically, and in the 2000 election were more likely to vote for George W.Bush for President, controlling for a variety of intervening factors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]