U.S. Legislator Perceptions of Constituent Opinion from Two Field Experiments

Two field experiments in 2016 involving 2,346 U.S. legislators tested interventions to correct their misperceptions of constituent opinion. The data likely contains experimental results, including legislator access rates to a constituent opinion dashboard and subsequent accuracy of their perceptions. The study was authored by Joshua Kalla of Yale University.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the effectiveness of information provision based on legislator engagement rates mentioned in the description
• Studying the persistence of elite misperceptions based on the finding that access did not improve accuracy
• Modeling factors influencing legislator receptivity to factual data based on the experimental outreach efforts

Strengths

• Data is derived from two field experiments with a large sample of 2,346 sitting U.S. legislators.
• Constituent opinion data was generated from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a known survey source.

Limitations

• Row count, column names, and sample data are unknown, limiting detailed assessment of the data's structure.
• The description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Yale University

Collection Method

Field experiments involving outreach to legislators and provision of a constituent opinion dashboard.

Time Range

2016

Geography

United States