IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v52y2008i2p412-420.html

Opinion Taking within Friendship Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne L. Parker
  • Glenn R. Parker
  • James A. McCann

Abstract

Communication within friendship networks can provide gains in efficiency that help individuals enrich their understanding of politics. Through two panel survey experiments, we demonstrate that the dissemination of an individual's opinion about the hazards posed by public policies can have both durable and significant effects on the policy judgments of friends. These effects are conditioned by both the content of the communication and the recipient's level of political awareness. Opinions emphasizing potential risks carry more weight than those that attempt to alleviate concerns about potential risks. Moreover, opinion transmission is more effective for subjects who are less politically aware when policy issues are salient; but when the political issue is more esoteric, friends who are more politically aware evidence greater opinion change.

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne L. Parker & Glenn R. Parker & James A. McCann, 2008. "Opinion Taking within Friendship Networks," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 412-420, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:52:y:2008:i:2:p:412-420
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00320.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00320.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00320.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tomz, Michael & Wittenberg, Jason & King, Gary, 2003. "Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i01).
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:osf:osfxxx:gyz3h_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Alrababah, Ala & Casalis, Marine & Masterson, Daniel & Hangartner, Dominik & Wehrli, & Weinstein, Jeremy, 2023. "Reducing Attrition in Phone-based Panel Surveys: A Web Application to Facilitate Best Practices and Semi-Automate Survey Workflow," OSF Preprints gyz3h, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Danny Hayes & Seth C. McKee, 2009. "The Participatory Effects of Redistricting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1006-1023, October.
    2. Cheryl Boudreau, 2012. "Greater than the sum of their parts? When combinations of institutions improve citizens’ decisions," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(1), pages 90-109, January.
    3. Martin Johnson & Paul Brace & Kevin Arceneaux, 2005. "Public Opinion and Dynamic Representation in the American States: The Case of Environmental Attitudes," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(1), pages 87-108, March.
    4. José Félix Sanz Sanz, 2026. "Reflexiones sobre el sistema fiscal español: notas para un debate necesario," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2026-01, FEDEA.
    5. Christophe Crombez, 2004. "Introduction," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 227-231, July.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    7. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Navin Kartik & Francesco Squintani & Katrin Tinn, 2024. "Information Revelation in Constant-Sum Games: Elections and Beyond," Papers 2406.17084, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2025.
    9. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    10. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    11. Hank C. Jenkins-Smith & Neil J. Mitchell & Kerry G. Herron, 2004. "Foreign and Domestic Policy Belief Structures in the U.S. and British Publics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(3), pages 287-309, June.
    12. Eric Kaufmann & Henry Patterson, 2006. "Intra‐Party Support for the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(3), pages 509-532, October.
    13. Peter J. Coughlin, 2015. "Probabilistic voting in models of electoral competition," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 13, pages 218-234, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Hanne Fjelde & Desirée Nilsson, 2018. "The rise of rebel contenders," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 551-565, September.
    15. , & ,, 2006. "Group formation and voter participation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 461-487, December.
    16. Alan E. Wiseman, 2006. "A Theory of Partisan Support and Entry Deterrence in Electoral Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 123-158, April.
    17. Dendi Ramdani & Arjen Witteloostuijn, 2012. "The Shareholder–Manager Relationship and Its Impact on the Likelihood of Firm Bribery," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 495-507, July.
    18. Alessandro Olper & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Mass Media and Public Policy: Global Evidence from Agricultural Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(3), pages 413-436.
    19. Armèn Hakhverdian, 2009. "Capturing Government Policy on the Left–Right Scale: Evidence from the United Kingdom, 1956–2006," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(4), pages 720-745, December.
    20. Sven Banisch & Eckehard Olbrich, 2021. "An Argument Communication Model of Polarization and Ideological Alignment," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 24(1), pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:52:y:2008:i:2:p:412-420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.