How Stable Are Anti-American Attitudes Over Time? A Test-Retest Study in Germany Including Twelve Statements to Measure Aversion Against America and Americans

Abstract

Presenting a comprehensive measurement instrument of 12 statements expressing resentments toward Americans and America, this study shows that anti-Americanism can be conceptualized as a robust and stable attitude transcending everyday politics. In a test-retest design applied in Germany in 2011 and 2012, we found a fair to moderate temporal stability of anti-American attitudes. Furthermore, we tested for consistency of potential correlates of anti-Americanism—anomia, globalization critique, and capitalism critique—and gained slightly different estimates when comparing multiple regression models of both years. Yet, further analysis suggests that those differences are not due to changes in anti-American attitudes but to the temporal instability of their correlates. Taken together, our study indicates that simple measurement instruments of anti-Americanism, as used in many previous studies, might be more prone to “everyday politics measurement errors” than multi-item measurements.

Keywords:

• Anti-Americanism
• transatlantic relations
• prejudice
• attitudes
• temporal stability
• test-retest reliability

Notes

1 The subjective political attitude was measured using the question “Many people use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ to denote their political views. How would you rate your political views on a scale from 0 to 10 while 0 means ‘left’ and 10 means ‘right’?’ (M = 4.7; SD = 1.69; N = 1,159). The original variable was recoded so that the values 4, 5, and 6 were assigned to the category “political middle” (68.5%) and the extreme values to the categories “left” (20.4%) and “right” (11.1), respectively. The educational level was evaluated using a categorical variable that measures the educational degree and was subsequently recoded into a quasi-metric variable reflecting years of education: “no graduation” = 7 years of education (.0%); “Volks-/Hauptschulabschluss/Polytechnische Oberschule 8. oder 9. Klasse” = 8 years (18.8%), “mittlere Reife/Realschul-abschluss/ Polytechnische Oberschule 10. Klasse” = 10 (30.6%), “Fachhochschulreife” = 12 (5.1%), “Hochschulreife” = 13 (14.4%), “Fachhochschulabschluss” = 16 (10.2%), “Universitätsabschluss” = 18 (21.0%). Household income was measured in two steps: respondents who declined to answer the open question could classify their income using a categorical scale. Both variables were then combined (M = 2,715.8; SD = 1,761.93; N = 977), where the mean of the categories was taken as the value of interest. (The category “1,500 to 2,000 euros,” for example, was recorded as “1,750”.) Finally, the net equivalent income was calculated by dividing the household income by the square root of household members (M = 1,875.1; SD = 1,432.29). The question measuring East German socialization reads “Did you spend a large part of your childhood or youth in the GDR or the new federal states?” (N = 1,201). Those who said “yes” were given the value 1 (22.2%). The age of respondents (M = 53.6; SD = .51) was captured by asking the year of birth and the gender was determined from the interviewer’s perception of the respondent’s voice (47.9% men and 52.1% women).

2 This is not surprising in light of the increasing state violence against the “Arab Spring” protests in Syria and Iran in late 2011 and early 2012. North Korea, again, most likely became a more salient topic for respondents after the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011.

Additional information

Funding

Parts of this work were financed by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, grant Az. 10.10.1.111.