Interviews
As part of my current research project, I’m interviewing Americans (recruited via Craigslist and paid with a Target gift card–yes, this is IRB-approved) about their political attitudes and beliefs, especially regarding the economy. The larger goal of the study is to discover and measure what I’m calling “public myths”: misperceptions about policies and politics that (unlike Obama’s birthplace or death panels) don’t stem from explicit misinformation. The interviews give me clues about where to look for these misperceptions, then I measure their reach via surveys.
A couple of widespread myths that I’ve unearthed so far:
- Most Americans believe that common low-wage jobs (home health aide, retail sales worker, etc) pay about 50% more than they actually do.
- About half of Americans believe there is no time limit on TANF benefits.
The interviews themselves have been fascinating. I’ve talked with a moderate Democrat living in rural Tennessee, a woman in upstate New York who just found a job after two years of searching, a young female Republican from Georgia who was personally offended by the contents of food stamp recipients’ grocery carts–overall, a wide range of ages, demographics, and political beliefs.
One surprise so far: literally every single person has said that outsourcing is a major factor causing unemployment: “I hear these people from India when I call customer service, and I think ‘why can’t I have that job?’”
Another surprise: the lack of partisan blame. I ask several questions about who’s at fault–for unemployment, for the housing crisis, for the debt–and for the most part, folks point to systemic problems rather than to individuals.
More thoughts on all this later.
UPDATE: just got off the phone with a Republican who supports reparations. A quote: “Generationally, they didn’t have the land, they didn’t have homes, they didn’t have the assets that our ancestors were able to sell and pass down, so it’s not an even playing field.”
I’m not about to become a qualitative researcher any time soon (this stuff is too hard!) but man, human people are so much more interesting/complicated than survey responses.