A Method of Linking Surveys Using Affective 'Signatures' with an Application to Racial/Ethnic Groups in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper addresses a concern often faced by social scientists who study subgroups within a given population, as they are frequently limited in the scope and breadth of their research questions due the quality of available survey data (i.e. inadequate sample size or lack of comprehensive questions). To address this problem, we develop a procedure for linking respondents from different surveys based on their internal (subjective) utility for political stimuli, which we capture by using an individual's responses to a set of feeling thermometer questions. Feeling thermometer questions, as demonstrated in previous research, are an accurate measure of an individual's subjective utility because they are measures of affect. We apply this technique to the 2004 National Annenberg Election survey and the 2004 American National Election Studies survey. Linking survey respondents based on their thermometer scores not only recovers the distributions on group demographics such as race/ethnicity, gender, and education but it also recovers the distributions of these groups' preferences across a wide array of issues and policies as well.

Keywords: surveys, race, ethnicity, feeling thermometer