ABSTRACT

Summary network heterogeneity measures are frequently used and often-cited in work on interpersonal political disagreement, but their properties are not well documented and they produce anomalous results relative to other measures of socially supplied disagreement. This study deconstructs the familiar summary network heterogeneity measure to examine why it produces incongruous results relative to other measures used in the literature. This study pays particular attention to the multiple strategies that exist for handling non-partisans when creating the measure. Additionally, it focuses on the “extreme views” items included in its construction, which are conceptually and methodologically distinct from other items and rarely theoretically justified. Results demonstrate that summary network heterogeneity is best thought of an as index, rather than as a scale, which has implications for how scholars should approach it. Critically, inclusion of the extreme views items and decisions about data exclusion also have substantive consequences; this highlights the need for further inquiry into extremity and for explicit reporting about data-handling decisions.

摘要

网络异质性总结措施在人际政治分歧方面的工作中经常被使用和引用，但是它们的性质没有得到很好的证明，并且相对于其他社会上存在分歧的措施，它们会产生异常结果。这项研究解构了熟悉的汇总网络异质性度量，以检查相对于文献中使用的其他度量，为什么会产生不一致的结果。这项研究特别关注在创建度量时用于处理无党派人士的多种策略。此外，它关注于其构造中包含的“极端观点”项目，这些项目在概念和方法上与其他项目不同，并且在理论上很少合理。结果表明，总结网络异质性最好被认为是一个索引，而不是作为一个量表，这对学者如何处理它有影响。至关重要的是，纳入极端观点项目和有关数据排除的决定也会产生实质性后果；这突出了需要进一步查询肢体并明确报告有关数据处理决策的需求。