No abstract

T he discipline of political science is built on theory, including a rough agreement on normative theories preferring freedom, democracy, and political equality, among others, and the development of positive theories focused on understanding the causes and consequences of these variables. Empirical political science, in turn, is devoted in large part to making causal inferences about these same variables. UnYou may be interested in our Anchoring Vignettes Web site, which, as a companion to this paper, provides software to implement the methods here, answers to frequently asked questions, example vignettes, and other materials (see http://gking.harvard.edu/vign/). Our names on this paper are ordered alphabetically. Our thanks go to John Aldrich, Jim Alt, Larry Bartels, Neal Beck, David Cutler, Federico Girosi, Dan Ho, Kosuke Imai, Stanley Feldman, Michael Herron, Mel Hinich, Simon Jackman, Orit Kedar, Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Liu, John Londregan, Joe Newhouse, Keith Poole, Sid Verba, Jonathan Wand, and Chris Winship for helpful discussions; Ken Benoit, Debbie Javeline, and Karen Ferree for help in writing vignettes; three anonymous referees and the editor for exceptionally helpful suggestions (One of our reviewers, who we now know is Henry Brady, wrote an extraordinary 20 page single-spaced review that greatly improved our work.);

T he discipline of political science is built on theory, including a rough agreement on normative theories preferring freedom, democracy, and political equality, among others, and the development of positive theories focused on understanding the causes and consequences of these variables. Empirical political science, in turn, is devoted in large part to making causal inferences about these same variables. UnYou may be interested in our Anchoring Vignettes Web site, which, as a companion to this paper, provides software to implement the methods here, answers to frequently asked questions, example vignettes, and other materials (see http://gking.harvard.edu/vign/). Our names on this paper are ordered alphabetically. Our thanks go to John Aldrich, Jim Alt, Larry Bartels, Neal Beck, David Cutler, Federico Girosi, Dan Ho, Kosuke Imai, Stanley Feldman, Michael Herron, Mel Hinich, Simon Jackman, Orit Kedar, Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Liu, John Londregan, Joe Newhouse, Keith Poole, Sid Verba, Jonathan Wand, and Chris Winship for helpful discussions; Ken Benoit, Debbie Javeline, and Karen Ferree for help in writing vignettes; three anonymous referees and the editor for exceptionally helpful suggestions (One of our reviewers, who we now know is Henry Brady, wrote an extraordinary 20 page single-spaced review that greatly improved our work.);

Objective To examine differences in expectations for health using anchoring vignettes, which describe fixed levels of health on dimensions such as mobility. Design Cross sectional survey of adults living in the community. Setting China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. Participants 3012 men and women aged 18 years and older (self ratings); subsample of 406 (vignette ratings). Main outcome measures Self rated mobility levels and ratings of hypothetical vignettes using the same questions and response categories. Results Consistent rankings of vignettes are evidence that vignettes are understood in similar ways in different settings, and internal consistency of orderings on two mobility questions indicates good comprehension. Variation in vignette ratings across age groups suggests that expectations for mobility decline with age. Comparison of responses to two different mobility questions supports the assumption that individual ratings of hypothetical vignettes relate to expectations for health in similar ways as self assessments. Conclusions Anchoring vignettes could provide a powerful tool for understanding and adjusting for the influence of different health expectations on self ratings of health. Incorporating anchoring vignettes in surveys can improve the comparability of self reported measures.

T he discipline of political science is built on theory, including a rough agreement on normative theories preferring freedom, democracy, and political equality, among others, and the development of positive theories focused on understanding the causes and consequences of these variables. Empirical political science, in turn, is devoted in large part to making causal inferences about these same variables. UnYou may be interested in our Anchoring Vignettes Web site, which, as a companion to this paper, provides software to implement the methods here, answers to frequently asked questions, example vignettes, and other materials (see http://gking.harvard.edu/vign/). Our names on this paper are ordered alphabetically. Our thanks go to John Aldrich, Jim Alt, Larry Bartels, Neal Beck, David Cutler, Federico Girosi, Dan Ho, Kosuke Imai, Stanley Feldman, Michael Herron, Mel Hinich, Simon Jackman, Orit Kedar, Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Liu, John Londregan, Joe Newhouse, Keith Poole, Sid Verba, Jonathan Wand, and Chris Winship for helpful discussions; Ken Benoit, Debbie Javeline, and Karen Ferree for help in writing vignettes; three anonymous referees and the editor for exceptionally helpful suggestions (One of our reviewers, who we now know is Henry Brady, wrote an extraordinary 20 page single-spaced review that greatly improved our work.);