Measuring social attitudes

The measurement of attitudes is common practice in most major academic surveys, and several important large-scale studies are devoted entirely to the exercise, including the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, fielded annually since 1983, the US General Social Survey (GSS), biennially, since 1972, and the German ‘Allbus’, also biennial, since 1980. In addition to these long-standing national studies, several large-scale cross-national studies, including the European Commission’s Eurobarometer surveys, the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and, most recently, the European Social Survey (ESS), have regularly collected data about social attitudes Europe-and world-wide for many years. The aim of each of these studies is to describe the way people think and feel about the various features of the world around them, and to make comparisons across different groups in society. The data are used extensively by students and academics across all the social sciences. Outside of academic research, politicians, civil servants, journalists, market researchers and advertising executives frequently use surveys to gauge public reactions to social policies, electoral candidates, political issues, new products and innovations, and these measurements play a critical role in decision making both in governance and business development alike.