Knowledge and Opinions About the Iranian Crisis: A Reconsideration of Three Models

This paper tests Gamson and Modigliani's enlightenment, mainstream, and cognitive consistency models of the linkage between knowledge and foreign policy opinions. Data from a survey of Lexington, Kentucky residents shortly after the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran, Iran in late 1979 indicate that although the mainstream model performs somewhat better than its two competitors, none of the Gamson-Modigliani models adequately explains public opinion concerning American policy options. Concluding discussion centers on the possible reasons for the weak showing of the models. Lee Sigelman is Professor and Chairman, and Pamela Johnston Conover is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky. The data analyzed here were gathered in a survey sponsored by the Center for Developmental Change, University of Kentucky. The authors express their thanks to the Center and to their coworkers on the survey: Kenneth Coleman, Dean Jaros, and Karen Mingst. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 45:477-491 ? 1981 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/81/0045-477/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 06:29:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 478 SIGELMAN AND CONOVER knowledge and foreign policy opinions. Specifically, Gamson and Modigliani outlined and empirically examined three different models of this linkage: the enlightenment model, the mainstream model, and the cognitive consistency model. At the time, Gamson and Modigliani's models were quite innovative, synthesizing much of what was then known or suspected about the factors that shape the public's attitudes toward questions of foreign policy. Furthermore, perusal of the Social Science Citation Index indicates that in the years since its publication Gamson and Modigliani's work has been cited quite frequently (e.g., Andrews, 1976; Petersen, 1977), and many of their points have been reformulated and popularized by others to the point where now their ideas seem hardly unique. For example, something very similar to what they called the"mainstream model' has gained greater currency as Mueller's (1973) "follower mentality." Thus, it can be argued that Gamson and Modigliani's models constitute a significant theoretical contribution to research in this area. Despite their presumed importance, however, these models have apparently never been subjected to further empirical comparison. This constitutes a serious oversight on the part of researchers, given the prominence of these models and the lack of alternative formulations elsewhere in the literature. Consequently, our purpose in the present study is to retest the Gamson-Modigliani models. The data employed for this retest concern the "Iranian crisis" -specifically, opinions about the options that faced the United States in the wake of the takeover of the American embassy in Teheran and seizure of approximately 60 hostages on November 4, 1979. Before introducing these data, however, a brief summary of the three models is in order. The Gamson-Modigliani Models In all three of their models, Gamson and Modigliani focused on the linkage between people's knowledge of foreign affairs and their foreign policy opinions. Simple factual knowledge plays the role of jack-of-all-trades in the three models: in each model knowledge was conceptualized somewhat differently, and was accordingly seen as having a somewhat different impact on opinion. This generalized treatment of knowledge may have added somewhat to the attractiveness of the Gamson-Modigliani models, but it may also, as we argue below, constitute one of the major shortcomings of the models. In the enlightenment model, which Gamson and Modigliani described as amounting to "wishful thinking" on the part of social scientists and others, knowledge was seen as an indicator of sophistication; people This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 06:29:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms OPINIONS ABOUT THE IRANIAN CRISIS 479 who were knowledgeable were presumed to possess a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of foreign affairs. Thus enlightened, they would be more likely than others to reject simplistically aggressive approaches to the solution of international problems. From this perspective followed the central hypothesis of the enlightenment model: The greater one's understanding of the complexity of foreign affairs (as indicated by one's factual knowledge), then the less belligerence displayed in one's foreign policy opinions. In contrast, in the mainstream model knowledge reflected "not so much better understanding of the world as greater participation in it and attachment to the mainstream" (Gamson and Modigliani, 1966:188). That is, rather than being depicted as better analysts of complex international situations, more knowledgeable citizens were seen as being both more aware of official government policy and more susceptible to its influence. Hence, the central hypothesis of the mainstream model: The greater one's attachment to the mainstream of society (as measured by one's knowledge), then the greater the conformity of one's foreign policy opinions to official policy. Both the enlightenment and mainstream models imply that greater knowledge should propel people toward a single opinion pole, but this is clearly not the implication of the cognitive consistency model. From the latter's perspective, endorsement of a specific policy position stems from the application of more general attitudes and orientations to a specific situation. To elaborate, in the cognitive consistency model, knowledge is seen as an indicator of people's conceptual ability to integrate the specific with the general. Where this ability is pronounced, there should be a strong linkage between general outlooks and specific opinions; where it is lacking, the relationship between general predispositions and specific policy positions should display considerable inconsistency, approaching randomness. Thus according to Gamson and Modigliani (1966), the central hypothesis of the cognitive consistency model is that knowledge defines the linkage between general orientations and particular opinions: The greater one's conceptual ability (as indicated by knowledge), the stronger the relationship between general attitudes and specific policy stands. Accordingly, different ideological outlooks should cause a sharper opinion differentiation among more knowledgeable citizens than among those with less knowledge-a prediction in direct conflict with those of the enlightenment and mainstream models. To test these models Gamson and Modigliani used data from a 1963-64 survey of Detroit area residents. On the foreign policy questions which they examined,' there was some limited support for the 1 They considered policies concerning the appropriate U.S. response if China were This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 06:29:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 480 SIGELMAN AND CONOVER enlightenment model but much more dramatic support for the mainstream model; support for policy options that were, in fact, being pursued consistently by the government increased steadily as the respondent's knowledge moved from the low to high categories. With respect to the cognitive consistency model, moderate relationships were observed between people's "belief systems"2 and their opinions on three specific foreign policy questions. Even more critical to the moders central hypothesis, however, was the finding that the relationships between belief systems and foreign policy opinions were consistently much stronger among respondents classified as highly knowledgeable than among those who had demonstrated low or medium levels of knowledge. Since there was both greater attachment to official governmental policies among the more knowledgeable and a strain toward attitudinal consistency that increased with knowledge, these findings led Gamson and Modigliani to conclude that the association between knowledge and foreign policy opinions is best understood in terms of a combination of the mainstream and cognitive consistency models. Much has happened, however, since 1963 when Gamson and Modigliani's data were collected-most notably, perhaps, America's involvement in a massively unpopular conflict in Vietnam; the dissent, disorder, and violence of the 1960s; and the political scandals of the 1970s. Taken in combination, these events seem not only to have undermined public confidence in political leadership, thereby potentially affecting the explanatory power of the mainstream model, but also to have sparked a retreat from support for an active, aggressive American posture in international affairs (Russett and Nincic, 1976), a change which could affect the explanatory power of all three of the Gamson-Modigliani models. In short, there is reason to question whether the conclusions they drew are as applicable today as they were in the mid1960s.