American idol – 65 years of admiration

Manning, Alan ORCID: 0000-0002-7884-3580 and Shanghavi, Amar (2014) American idol – 65 years of admiration. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1320). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

Since the 1940s Gallup has, every December, asked Americans about the living man and woman they most admire. This paper documents the way in which the types of people who are admired has changed and argues that the responses to this question tells us something about the way in which society has been evolving - the 65 years of data are probably the longest consistent series on social attitudes. We argue on theoretical grounds and show using empirical analysis that admiration can be linked to trust, and specifically that admiring the president is strongly related to trust in government. Using this link we can provide information on trends in trust on a consistent basis back to the late 1940s, earlier than most other data sources. Finally, the paper investigates the link between admiration and media mentions. We show that people who receive a relatively large number of mentions in newspapers in particular year and state are also more likely to be admired by people.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/series.asp?...
Additional Information:	© 2014 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
JEL classification:	Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
Date Deposited:	06 Jan 2015 15:02
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 19:15
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/60614

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