Asking why about social problems: Ideology and causal models in the public mind

Abstract

In 'The Art of Asking Why' Paul Lazarsfeld (1935) pointed out the deficiency of simply asking people 'why' they did something, and developed the idea of accounting models to guide a much more extensive series of questions about reasons for action. A similar problem arises when people are asked 'why' about social phenomena like unemployment, poverty, inflation, or urban riots. A review of research asking people for their explanations of social problems shows that open-ended responses are rarely probed to elicit the whole 'causal model' which the respondent has in mind; that closed-ended questions tend to offer limited choices, and not to explore the possibility of 'causal chains' or conditional effects; and that there is a tendency to classify answers into crude dichotomies rather than explore the public's ideas about specific causal mechanisms for social problems. Particular problems arise in studying élite belief systems since these are likely to be more elaborate than the public's. Content analysis of élite group discussions and élite media offer one avenue for studying such groups. © 1995 World Association for Public Opinion Research.