An Experimental Approach to Bandwagon Research

Abstract

This article describes an experiment in which experimental and control questionnaires were sent to two different sample groups of respondents. Both questionnaires contained the same four opinion questions and were identical to each other except that each opinion question on the experimental questionnaire was preceded by the most recent national poll result on that question. Comparisons of the responses to both questionnaires revealed that blue-collar workers seemed to react negatively while white-collar workers seemed to react positively (in both opinion and response rate) to the national poll results