Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-24-2025
Abstract
Researchers regularly use large survey studies to examine public political opinion. Surveys running over days and months will necessarily incorporate religious occasions that can introduce variation in public opinion. Using recent survey data from Israel, this study demonstrates that giving surveys on religious occasions (e.g., the Sabbath, Hannukah, Sukkot) can elicit different opinion responses. These effects are found among both religious and non-religious respondents. While incorporating these fluctuations is realistic in longer-term surveys, surveys fielded in a short window inadvertently drawing heavily on a holiday or holy day sample may bias their findings. This study thus urges researchers to be cognizant of ambient religious context when conducting survey studies.
Recommended Citation
Ridge HM. Holy day surveys and political attitudes in Israel. Politics and Religion. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048324000348
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
The author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
This article was originally published in Politics and Religion in 2025. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048324000348