I checked 7 public opinion journals on Friday, November 28, 2025 using the Crossref API. For the period November 21 to November 27, I found 5 new paper(s) in 3 journal(s).

Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties

Revealing long-term trajectories of public opinion and polling in Britain: a new resource of historical data from the Gallup Poll in Britain, 1955–1991
Will Jennings, John Kenny, Andra Roescu, Stuart Smedley, Kathleen Weldon, Peter K. Enns
Full text

Public Opinion Quarterly

An Audit of Social Science Survey Experiments
Tamkinat Rauf, Jan Gerrit Voelkel, James Druckman, Jeremy Freese
Full text
Survey experiments have become a popular methodology for causal inference across the social sciences. We study the efficacy of survey experiment designs by analyzing 100 social science experiments—entailing more than 1,000 hypothesis tests—that were selected by experts via a competitive process and fielded on probability samples of US adults between 2012 and 2020. Inclusion in the analysis is only conditional on the experiment qualifying for data collection, and not in any way on study results or publication. Results show that less than a third of proposed hypotheses were supported by the data, implying many more null findings than ostensibly appear in the published literature. We find that the largest predictor of positive experimental results was sample size. This is somewhat surprising, given that experimental studies typically take power considerations into account prior to data collection. In our data, the importance of sample size stemmed from small effect sizes across studies (perhaps smaller than researchers may have anticipated), highlighting a tension between commonly used power calculi and determining what constitutes a “meaningful effect.” We also find that moderation hypotheses were rarely significant, and that using multiple items for outcome measures did not affect results as expected. But indicators of research experience predicted higher rates of positive results, suggesting that there may be some room for optimizing experiment outcomes by minimizing design errors.
A Measurement Gap? Effect of Survey Instrument and Scoring on the Partisan Knowledge Gap
Lucas Shen, Gaurav Sood, Daniel Weitzel
Full text
Research suggests that partisan gaps in political knowledge with partisan implications are wide and widespread in the United States. Using a series of experiments, we estimate the extent to which the partisan gaps in commercial surveys reflect differences in confidently held beliefs rather than motivated guessing. Knowledge items on commercial surveys often have guessing-encouraging features. Removing such features yields scales with greater reliability and higher criterion validity. More substantively, partisan gaps on scales without these “inflationary” features are roughly 40 percent smaller. Thus, contrary to some prior research, which finds that the upward bias is explained by the knowledgeable deliberately marking the wrong answer (partisan cheerleading), our data suggest that partisan gaps on commercial surveys in the United States are strongly upwardly biased by motivated guessing by the ignorant. Relatedly, we also find that partisans know less than what toplines of commercial polls suggest.

Social Science Computer Review

Caught in the Scroll: Emotion Regulation, Escapism, and Conscientiousness in Short-Form Video Use–Related Disruptions
Parwinder Singh, Divya Kumari, Deeksha Sahu
Full text
Emerging social media platforms have become integral to daily life by fulfilling users’ needs for information, expression, and social connection. Short-form videos (SFVs) are especially popular among youth due to their personalized and immersive design. Research has highlighted that, in educational settings, social media–assisted instructional approaches can enhance motivation, participation, and performance; however, the abundance of non-educational content on SFV platforms may hinder students’ self-regulation and academic focus. Excessive engagement may impair concentration, increase procrastination, reduce classroom participation, and heighten stress, anxiety, and depression. Despite growing concerns on excessive SFV usage, limited attention has been given to how such consumption disrupts students’ daily functioning and the psychological mechanisms involved. Addressing this gap, the present study examines escapism as a mediator between emotion regulation difficulties (ERDs) and SFV-related functioning disruptions, and investigates conscientiousness as a moderating factor in this relationship. Data was collected from B.Tech students ( N = 303) enrolled in technical institutions across India through an online survey using standardized measures. Collected data was subjected to regression, mediation and moderation analysis using SPSS v.30 and PROCESS macro. It was found that escapism was a significant mediator in the relationship of ERDs and interference from SFV consumption and conscientiousness emerged as a moderator of the relationship between ERDs and escapism. The study provides deeper theoretical insights into the psychological drivers of SFV-related dysfunction and informs strategies for mitigating its negative academic and psychological impacts. The results can aid in designing digital well-being interventions, guiding educators and parents in fostering responsible SFV consumption among students.
How Centralized is Party Communication on Social Media?
Tilko Swalve, Dominic Nyhuis, Christoph Hönnige, Merle Huber, Philipp Köker
Full text
Social media has become an indispensable tool for politicians, allowing them to bypass traditional media and party filters to directly communicate with voters. This presents both opportunities and challenges for political parties. On the one hand, politicians can personalize their message to resonate with local constituents. On the other, parties risk appearing disjointed with potential electoral consequences when they fail to present a clear message. To understand whether parties are able to ensure a coherent message in the new media environments, this study examines parties' retweet networks on Twitter in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2021. We argue that party communication remains predominantly hierarchical, particularly in larger parties. Party elites and official party accounts serve as focal points, creating content that gets disseminated by regular MPs. Unlike party elites, official party accounts play a role in amplifying regular MPs’ messages to a wider audience. We employ Exponential Random Graph Models to assess the structure of parties’ online communication networks, analyzing nearly 400,000 retweets. The results confirm the core predictions of our theory.