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Description & Citation--Study No. 3290

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:3290
 
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03290
 
Title:ABC News/Washington Post Terrorist Attack Poll #2, September 2001
 
Principal Investigator(s):ABC News
 
  The Washington Post
 
Series:ABC News/Washington Post Poll Series
 
Bibliographic Citation:ABC News/The Washington Post. ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST TERRORIST ATTACK POLL #2, SEPTEMBER 2001 [Computer file]. ICPSR version. Horsham, PA: Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch [producer], 2001. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter- university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2001.
 

Scope of Study

Summary:This special topic poll, conducted September 13, 2001, was undertaken to assess respondents' reactions to and feelings about the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center towers in New York City, damaged the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and resulted in a plane crash in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency and the terrorist attacks. Respondents were asked whether they believed that the United States government did all it reasonably could do to try to prevent the attacks, and whether they were confident in the ability of the United States government to prevent future terrorist attacks against America. Assuming that the United States is able to identify the groups and/or nations responsible for the attacks, those queried were asked whether they would support taking military action in response. Respondents were asked whether they would feel the same way if military action meant that innocent civilians in other countries might be injured or killed and if military action resulted in a long war with large numbers of troops injured or killed. Those queried were asked whether they believed that the United States would go to war as a result of Tuesday's attacks. Respondents' opinions were elicited on Osama bin Laden, a suspect in the recent attacks, who reportedly lived in Afghanistan and was indicted for directing previous terrorist attacks. They were asked whether they would support attacking Afghanistan militarily if Afghanistan did not turn bin Laden over to the United States. Respondents were also asked whether they would support new laws that would make it easier for the FBI and other authorities to investigate suspected terrorists, giving up some of their personal liberties and privacy as a result of such laws, and whether they would support new airport security measures that might cause long delays in air travel. Those surveyed were asked about their personal safety concerns regarding upcoming air travel and whether they had cancelled or were planning to cancel future travel plans. Additional topics covered whether the attacks had made respondents more suspicious of people of Arab descent, how their children were reacting to the acts of terrorism, and whether the economy was heading into a recession. Background information on respondents includes age, gender, political party, children in household, and frequency of air travel.
 
Subject Term(s):Afghanistan, bin Laden, Osama, Bush, George W., counterterrorism, military intervention, national security, presidency, presidential performance, public confidence, public opinion, public safety, September 11 attack, terrorism, terrorist prosecution, terrorist attacks, trust in government, war
 
Geographic Coverage:United States
 
Time Period:September 2001
 
Data Collection Notes:(1) The data are provided as an SPSS portable file. (2) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in essentially the same form in which they were received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents' anonymity. (3) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
 

Methodology

Access and Availability

Note:A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.
 
Original ICPSR Release:2001-10-01
 

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