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Bridging ESS and EVS to study social attitudes, norms and values across Europe |
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| Session Organisers | Dr Ruxandra Comanaru (European Social Survey ERIC, City, University of London) Professor Vera Lomazzi (European Values Study/ University of Bergamo) Professor Rory Fitzgerald (European Social Survey ERIC, City, University of London) Professor Ruud Luijkx (European Values Study/Tilburg University) |
| Time | Tuesday 18 July, 09:00 - 10:30 |
| Room | |
Cross-sectional and cross-national surveys in Europe, such as the European Social Survey (ESS) and the European Values Study (EVS), support scholars aiming at studying human values and attitudes comparatively, both across countries and over time, by providing high quality data concerning several life domains. The ESS collects data through a core questionnaire and 2 rotating modules every 2 years since 2002 in a varying number of countries (the maximum was 32 participating countries in ESS Round 10 – 2020-22), while the EVS investigates the Europeans’ values since 1981 in more than 40 countries every 9 years (the maximum was 47 participating countries in 2008).
While keeping their different goals and identities, these two research programmes provide measures to investigate common dimensions in the domains of social and institutional trust; political participation; life satisfaction and happiness; national identity; religiosity; attitudes towards immigration, gender roles, climate change, welfare, and others. Scholars often exploit this commonality to enlarge the coverage of their studies, for example combining the datasets to obtain a longer time-series or a larger number of cases or countries. Others, interested in specific topics, for example attitudes to climate change, can benefit from the complementarity of the two surveys.
The session invites papers that adopt the combined use of ESS and EVS in the comparative study of values and attitudes, studies investigating the potential bridging of EVS measures and ESS items from methodological perspective, including the bridging of the demographic variables included in these surveys.
Keywords: ESS, EVS
Miss Joana Nunes (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa) - Presenting Author
Ms Alice Ramos (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa)
Mr Diogo Dinis (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa)
Collective action (CA) occurs when a group of people join together to achieve a common goal. All over the world individuals have been engaging in group behaviors that drive societal change. Previous studies have consistently shown the role of instrumental and motivational factors in predicting CA behaviors and intentions. However, few studies have focused on the role of cultural and symbolic factors dictated by values. Therefore, our goal was, using data from ESS11 and EVS (2017-2020), to analyze both values from a cultural and individual perspective to grasp its impact on CA behaviors, following a multilevel analysis approach. 15 countries were considered, and results revealed an association between Schwartz individual values and CA. In line with previous studies, universalism was one of the strongest predictors of CA behaviors. Additionally, as hypothesized, the relationship between some of the individual values and CA varied depending on the materialism and post-materialism Inglehart’s’ values scale. Our findings highlight the importance of integrating diverse theoretical perspectives to better understand the mechanisms underlying CA as well as the need to consider not only individual, but also contextual dimensions in group behaviors. This study opens doors for further analysis to incorporate a more comprehensive framework when analyzing political and civic grassroots involvement within the population across different countries.
Professor Cristiano Vezzoni (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Multi-purpose international surveys are conducted across diverse national contexts to ensure global comparability. However, this approach presents significant challenges for political research, particularly in studying voter turnout and party preferences. A major issue arises from the differing timing of elections across countries, which means data collection for simultaneous international surveys occurs at varying points in each country's electoral cycle. Furthermore, the operationalization of these concepts differs across surveys. For instance, the European Values Survey (EVS 2017) measures turnout using attitudinal questions and assesses party preferences through a question about the party that most appeals to the respondent. In contrast, the European Social Survey (ESS) emphasizes vote recall and party closeness.
This paper examines the outcomes of these differing operationalization strategies and compares them with the actual results of prior and subsequent elections.
Preliminary findings suggest that biases at the country level are largely driven by contextual factors, particularly voter turnout levels. Additionally, results for party preference measures are heavily influenced by question formulation, affecting both the proportion of missing values and the distribution of valid responses.
The paper proposes strategies to bridge the two surveys and concludes with a proposal for alternative question designs on party preferences to address the limitations identified in current measures. These challenges are particularly relevant in light of the convergence of the ESS and EVS toward shared international standards, which aim to enhance the usability, comparability, and linkage of data from various sources.
Dr David Consolazio (Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Professor Ferruccio Biolcati Rinaldi (Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan)
Dr Riccardo Ladini (Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan)
Dr Francesco Molteni (Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan)
The European Social Survey (ESS) and the European Values Studies (EVS) systematically rely on different numeric scales in their survey items. The EVS employs a 1-10 scale, offering an even number of response categories. In contrast, the ESS uses a 0-10 scale, which introduces an additional option for respondents, providing a midpoint which allows interviewees to express a neutral stance on survey items.
Such differences raise critical issues to deal with when combining data from the two surveys to obtain longer time-series, and a larger number of cases and countries. Indeed, despite the presence of identically worded or very similar questions, data analysis cannot proceed without prior harmonization of scales.
Focusing on four items, two unipolar scales (life satisfaction; satisfaction with the political system) and two bipolar scales (left/right positioning; opinion on EU enlargement), here we explore several strategies for proper harmonization, assessing the impact of different operational choices and evaluating which one provides the best comparability of results, minimizing the “costs” of reducing and/or distorting the original information.
Specifically, following a detailed graphical description of the data distributions, we assess data transformation through normalization, standardization with z-scores, and different categorizations, along with the use of appropriate statistical tests (e.g., Mann-Whitney U) to determine the impact of each strategy.
By integrating ESS rounds 1-9 (covering 2002 to 2018) and EVS data from 1999, 2008, and 2017, and focusing exclusively on countries common to all the survey waves, our analyses aim to assess the feasibility of constructing a unified time series by combining the two sources, while also evaluating their comparability and relation to socio-demographic indicators such as age, gender, and education.
Mr Diogo Dinis (Instituto de Ciências Sociais - Universidade de Lisboa) - Presenting Author
Lately, survey research in Europe has been moving away from face to face toward different modes of data collection such as online panels. As these rely on less controlled environments during data collection, concerns about data quality become a priority even with previously validated indicators. In parallel, as new methods to dictate life and death arise or gain popularity, moral bounds regarding euthanasia, suicide, abortion and artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization fuel heated debates, namely in public policy decisions in contemporary Europe. Besides, as moral issues are among the most personal themes with strong links to one’s ethical orientation, they stand as particularly sensitive items to social desirability. It is then evermore important that we make sure we’re able to properly measure these attitudes and how the change in collection mode may affect it. With this in mind, this study focuses on the comparison between ESS-CRONOS (Online Panel) and EVS (Face to Face) studies to verify to what extent, if any, collection mode impacts the way people answer life and death decision items. The analysis will be made within countries and between modes to assess the impact of mode effect and how it interacts with individual characteristics such as sex, gender, level of education, political orientation, locus of control, religiosity, and familism. Our results will contribute to the discussion on survey practices as we move forward toward a mixed mode practice and shed light on European attitudes toward moral bounds.
Professor Renata Franc (Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar) - Presenting Author
Dr Tomislav Pavlović (Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar)
Dr Marina Maglić (Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar)
Latent class analyses have recently gained popularity in social sciences due to their potential to discriminate homogeneous subgroups within samples. This potential can be used for various purposes, including understanding political behaviors. However, just like any other analyses, latent class analyses are limited by the format of inputs: the more refined inputs, the higher the likelihood of distinguishing groups. This analysis focuses on comparing the outcomes of latent class analyses conducted on two data sets using similar items related to political actions with different measurement scales. On the one hand, the eleventh wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) measures only whether individuals participated in a behaviour (e.g., voting, boycotting, demonstrations) or not. The fifth wave of the European Value Survey (EVS), on the other hand, distinguishes between two types of negative responses: a negative response exhibiting strong unwillingness to conduct an action and a negative response exhibiting willingness for future. Data from two countries with highly active citizens (Spain and France) and two countries with less active citizens (Slovenia and Croatia) that were present in both data sets were analyzed to compare the outcomes of latent class analyses conducted on the same items. Generally, latent class analyses conducted on the EVS data yielded more classes than analyses conducted on the ESS data. Additional comparisons conducted on the classes obtained on the EVS data confirmed that the classes meaningfully differed. According to these findings, it seems that the data measuring the potential for participation in political actions next to measuring only participation could have greater value for researchers relying on analytical approaches including (or at least resembling) latent class analysis.