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A Model-Based Method for Detecting Persistent Cultural Change Using Panel Data

Recent work argues that changes in people’s responses to the same question over time should be thought of as reflecting a fixed baseline subject to temporary local influences, rather than durable changes in response to new information. Distinguishing between these two individual-level process—a sett...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Vaisey, Stephen, Kiley, Kevin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34977277
http://dx.doi.org/10.15195/v8.a5
Descripción
Sumario:Recent work argues that changes in people’s responses to the same question over time should be thought of as reflecting a fixed baseline subject to temporary local influences, rather than durable changes in response to new information. Distinguishing between these two individual-level process—a settled dispositions model and an active updating model—is important because these individual-level processes underlie different theories of population-level social change. This article introduces an alternative method for adjudicating between these two models based on structural equation modeling. This model provides a close fit to the theoretical models outlined in previous work. Applying this method to more than 500 questions in the General Social Survey’s three-wave panels, we find even stronger evidence than previous work that most survey responses reflect settled dispositions developed prior to adulthood.