Are Citizens “Receiving the Treatment”? Assessing a Key Link in Contextual Theories of Public Opinion and Political Behavior

Abstract

The theorization and empirical exploration of contextual effects is a long-standing feature of public opinion and political behavior research. At present, however, there is little to no evidence that citizens actually perceive the local contextual factors theorized to influence their attitudes and behaviors. In this article, we focus on two of the most prevalent contextual factors appearing in theories-racial/ethnic and economic context-to investigate whether citizens' perceptions of their local ethnic and economic contexts map onto variation in the actual ethnic composition and economic health of these environments. Using national survey data combined with Census data, and focusing on the popular topics of immigration and unemployment, we find that objective measures of the size of the immigrant population and unemployment rate in respondents' county and zip code strongly predict perceived levels of local immigration and assessments of the health of one's local job market. In addition to demonstrating that citizens are "receiving the treatment," we show that perceptions of one's context overwhelmingly mediate the effect of these objective contextual factors on relevant economic and immigration attitudes. The results from our analyses provide scholars with unprecedented evidence that a key perceptual process presumed in various contextual theories of political attitudes and behavior is, in fact, valid.

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions

“…The variation of immigrants' presence across regions (see Figure 3) illustrates this. Recent findings from the United States reassuringly demonstrate that actual regional immigration levels are strongly related to individuals' perceptions of immigration levels (Newman et al 2015).…”

Authoritarian Predispositions and Attitudes Towards Redistribution

“…It is also possible that while national inflation rates reflect a level of economic hardship felt by more or less everyone, national unemployment rates may not capture the hardship felt by those in different localities. In fact, there is evidence that individuals are more sensitive towards unemployment in their immediate locality (Newman et al, ). If this is the case, it may explain the null findings for the interactions between national unemployment levels and authoritarian predispositions.…”

“…However, this incorrect estimation does not necessarily mean that people are ignorant about unemployment. In fact, even individuals with low levels of knowledge are generally aware of trends in unemployment levels (Conover et al, ; Newman, Velez, Hartman, & Bankert, ). People are especially sensitive to levels of unemployment in their immediate locality (Newman et al, ).…”

“…In fact, even individuals with low levels of knowledge are generally aware of trends in unemployment levels (Conover et al, ; Newman, Velez, Hartman, & Bankert, ). People are especially sensitive to levels of unemployment in their immediate locality (Newman et al, ). Therefore, unemployment and poverty estimates may reflect concern with economic conditions in one’s immediate setting as well as experience of personal economic hardship.…”

Inequality is a problem of inference: How people solve the social puzzle of unequal outcomes

“…Such encounters produce experiences which may lead emerging adults to re-evaluate their worldview [64][65][66]. Conversely, an environment low in ethnoracial and socioeconomic heterogeneity may keep young people from this kind of information and thus does not provide counterevidence to the dominant meritocratic view of society [67][68][69].…”