Political

Public’s views of judges depends on how the question is worded

Royal Courts of Justice in London
Image by TheOtherKev from Pixabay.

There is a lovely example of how question wording influences the results of opinion polls in a new research report from The Constitution Unit, What Kind of Democracy Do People Want?

Here’s the difference it makes when how judges and politicians are described varies:

Public view on judges versus politicians making decisions

In this case, how judges and politicians are each described varies the answer between 37% and 58%. That’s a strikingly large example of the influence question wording can have. The effect is most likely so large because the question being asked is one that very few people spend much time thinking about and also because the question gets at a dilemma to which most people’s fuller views involve trade-offs and caveats.

But even though the question wording effect is smaller in other contexts, it is still an important factor to bear in mind. More on that and how to make sure you’re drawing the right lessons from polls in my new book, Polling UnPacked.

Here also is the full report that poll came from.

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