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Some years ago, an acquaintance of mine was asked by her sister if she would like ice in her drink. She said no. 'You don't want ice in your drink?' [...]

In a 2020 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article, Alvin Roth and Stephanie Wang observe that both markets and bans on markets require social support to be effective. [...]

This study analyzes public opinion data on would-be first ladies during the presidential campaign season from 1992 to 2008. By comparing attitudes toward would-be first ladies over the last five presidential cycles, we identify key areas of stability and change in Americans' attitudes toward these individuals. Additionally, survey data are used to explore how attitudes about these women differ across key demographics, to identify factors that shape the public's attitudes concerning presidential candidates' wives, and to explore the impact of these women on their husbands' favorability ratings. The results indicate that spouses who embody the traditional role of first lady tend to be more popular, while spouses who assume an active role in advocating policy, such as Hillary Clinton, garner less support. Most candidate spouses generate highly polarized reactions along partisan lines, although more traditional spouses evoke a less divisive response., Since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt, pollsters have surveyed the public about first ladies, although such opinion taking has mainly occurred when the first lady has done or said something [...]

U.S. armed forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, claiming that the country had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which it intended to use against the United States Although evidence of the existence of these WMD was limited, President George W. Bush's administration faced little opposition in taking the United States to war. Using the concepts of 'iconography' and 'banal nationalism,' I argue that the events of 9/11 and the subsequent outpouring of nationalism dampened opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The increased display of the American flag in the aftermath of 9/11 was emblematic of this increase in nationalism and generated additional support for the Bush administration's decision to go to war. This nationalism further created a form of 'collective amnesia' that limited the citizenry's receptivity to information contradicting the administration's narrative, which continues to linger. Keywords: banal nationalism, U.S. invasion of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction., On 19 March 2003 the United States invaded Iraq with a force of 90,000 troops. The stated basis for the decision made by the administration of President George W. Bush [...]

Scholarly inquiry into collective memory has fostered a host of innovative questions, perspectives, and interpretations about how individuals and communities are both constituted by the past and mobilize it for present-day projects. Race is one of the more important current issues demonstrating how the presence of the past is both potent and sorrowful in the United States. It is therefore critical to examine how memories of racial oppression, conflict, and reconstruction shape race relations. Studies of race relations, however, generally ignore collective memory's role in shaping racial norms and attitudes. This article uses the 1993 General Social Survey to address the silences in the collective memory and race relations literatures by examining how Americans' recollections of the civil rights movement influence their racial attitudes and racial policy preferences. Although we find that Americans' opinions about government programs targeting African Americans are unrelated to civil rights memory, respondents who spontaneously recalled the civil rights struggle and its victories as an especially important historical event generally expressed more racially liberal opinions than did those with different memories. Our findings both support the basic presupposition of collective memory studies--memory matters--and point to a fruitful innovation in the study of racial attitudes.

In the aftermath of September 11, 200l, an unusually large percentage of Americans expressed high levels of confidence in the institutions charged with responding to the terrorist attacks. By the following summer, such confidence had declined significantly. This study draws on data from a panel study conducted in fall 2001 and summer 2002 to track Americans' emotional responses to terrorism and their levels of confidence in government institutions as well as to explore how these phenomena were related. It is focused on whether--and if so, how--the positive emotions of pride and hope influenced confidence in institutions and helped sustain that confidence over time. Positive relationships between hope, pride, and confidence during both study periods are found. Analysis of confidence and emotions over time suggests reciprocal relationships between confidence and hope. Taken as a whole, the findings point to the importance of considering the emotional sources and implications of confidence. Keywords: confidence in government; trust; affect: public opinion; terrorism; September 11: anxiety

The American people are deeply concerned about the economic downturn in 2008, although the reasons for these concerns are diverse. These concerns weigh heavily on the 2008 US presidential election and make it difficult to find politically effective solution.

Marienthal is a small Austrian village about half an hour from Vienna by train. In the 1920s, it was dominated by one textile factory, which employed the majority of the [...]

Attitudes toward race and politics continue to show tensions between antiracist norms and racist stereotypes, even among new generations of White Americans raised in an era of consensus on antiracist social norms. I suggest that this 'dissonance' stems from a process of 'two-tracked socialization' and I demonstrate the persistence of such dissonant attitudes in two ways. First, in the aggregate, the youngest cohorts of White Americans do not greatly differ from older generations in their policy preferences on racial matters and beliefs about race, politics, and inequality. Second, stereotypes still influence policy preferences among younger cohorts. On the second point, I replicate Gilens's work on the racialization of welfare policy attitudes with more recent data and added attention to differences and similarities across birth cohorts. Keywords: public opinion; racial attitudes; political socialization; cohort effects; political generations; welfare policy

AMERICANS ARE DRIVING more miles, using more energy, and producing more goods and services than ever. But at the same time, the air quality in America's cities is better than [...]

The report of a telephonic interview based survey on the views of Americans on a Mormon standing as a presidential candidate is presented.

Death is a common denominator in human experience, but anthropologists have found that the responses it evokes are astonishingly various, and very few studies have focused on the attitudes of American Southerners towards death. Their attitude towards death and the meaning of death in Antebellum White Evangelical culture are studied.

The comparative analysis of the sensitivity of American and East Asian auditors, to situational factors that induce fraudulent behavior by accounting professionals, is presented.

With the Internet reshaping so many aspects of our lives, it has become common for prognosticators to speculate about the ultimate demise of all sorts of institutions that many of [...]

The views of the Americans, on the benefit of owning guns to protect their lives and property from criminals, are presented.

The occurrence of Iraq at the top of the Americans' list of problems is discussed.

The demographic aspects of the voting patterns, observed during Congressional elections in the different American states, are discussed.

Are American attitudes toward economic inequality different from those in other countries? One tradition in sociology suggests American 'exceptionalism,' while another argues for convergence across nations in social norms, such as attitudes toward inequality. This article uses International Social Survey Program (ISSP) microdata to compare attitudes in different countries toward what individuals in specific occupations 'do earn' and what they ' should earn,' and to distinguish value preferences for more egalitarian outcomes from other confounding attitudes and perceptions. The authors suggest a method for summarizing individual preferences for the leveling of earnings and use kernel density estimates to describe and compare the distribution of individual preferences over time and cross-nationally. They find that subjective estimates of inequality in pay diverge substantially from actual data, and that although Americans do not, on the average, have different preferences for aggregate (in)equality, there is evidence for.' 1. Less awareness concerning the extent of inequality at the top of the income distribution in America 2. More polarization in attitudes among Americans 3. Similar preferences for 'leveling down' at the top of the earnings distribution in the United States, but also 4. Less concern for reducing differentials at the bottom of the distribution.

Concerns of the American people on their ability to fulfill their basic financial needs in future are highlighted.

American university students owned more than twice as many credit cards as British university students. However, scores on a credit card attitude scale predicted the number of cards owned by respondents in both countries.