The Promises and Pitfalls of Using Panel Data to Understand Individual Belief Change

In this article, we investigate whether studies on political belief change can identify change trajectories at the individual level. Using simulations and empirical case studies, we propose a grid-search framework that allows researchers to evaluate the extent to which their target estimates generalize to individuals in their study population. We use simulated datasets to estimate plausible values for how many people changed, how much they changed, and who changed, based on observed survey response trajectories. Our results suggest that researchers should think carefully about the conditions under which they can make claims about belief change at the individual level.