Award Abstract #9977503
Acquisition of an Experimental Survey Research Laboratory in the Social Sciences at SUNY, Stony Brook

NSF Org:	BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
Initial Amendment Date:	July 15, 1999
Latest Amendment Date:	July 15, 1999
Award Number:	9977503
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	John E. Yellen BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
Start Date:	August 1, 1999
Expires:	July 31, 2002 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$104866
Investigator(s):	Leonie Huddy Leonie.Huddy@sunysb.edu (Principal Investigator) Stanley Feldman (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	SUNY at Stony Brook WEST 5510 FRK MEL LIB STONY BROOK, NY 11794 631/632-9949
NSF Program(s):	MAJOR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION
Field Application(s):	0116000 Human Subjects
Program Reference Code(s):	OTHR, 1189, 0000
Program Element Code(s):	1189

ABSTRACT

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Leonie Huddy and his colleagues will establish a central multi-purpose experimental survey research laboratory that will serve as both a telephone survey laboratory and an experimental attitude research lab. The survey facility will allow access to random samples of adults interviewed using up-to-date technology that includes voice recording and analysis capabilities, software that builds randomized experiments into the survey, and response time measures. Voice recording capabilities will allow analysis of a respondent's linguistic and paralinguistic cues such as filled pauses and rising intonation that convey information about uncertainty. The laboratory will contain state-of-the-art software and hardware for collecting survey data over the phone and directly in the laboratory. Computers will be equipped with standard Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing software, response latency capabilities, voice recording and analysis equipment and programmable software that will allow for inclusion of subliminal primes that are essential to the measurement of automatic attitudes. The lab will contain twelve individual workstations equipped with head sets and separated by office panels. Each workstation will operate from a central server. Of the four projects which will provide the core for a first set of initiatives, two are directed by political scientists and concern the theory and measurement of political attitudes. One will focus on the predictive validity of various racial attitudes and touch on a set of central theoretical questions about the covert nature of "true" racial attitudes in contemporary US society. A second examines the notion than many, if not most, political attitudes are founded on ambivalence, an idea which poses serious challenge to contemporary theories of public opinion and attitude stability. Other projects address the uncertainty that is elicited by many factual survey questions, and on the nature of close relationships in adult pairs. The laboratory will play an integral role in both undergraduate and graduate research and teaching.

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