Hard to believe

Arthur Brooks, the incoming president of the American Enterprise Institute, writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

In May 2008, the Gallup Organization asked 1,200 American adults how many days in the past week they had felt 'outraged.' The average number of angry days was 1.17, and 54% of those surveyed said none. Only one in 20 reported being outraged every day. Despite the litany of horrors presented to us daily by campaigning politicians, most of us appear to be doing really quite well managing our anger.

Indeed, we are less angry today than a decade ago. Let's look back to the glory days of the 1990s, when -- according to the media narrative -- we enjoyed uninterrupted peace and prosperity. In 1996, the General Social Survey asked exactly the same 'outrage' question of 1,500 adults. Then, only 38% had not been outraged at all in the past week. The average number of angry days was 1.5 per week, 29% higher than at present.

That's not what I would have expected. The article goes on to say the one group that is more outraged than in 1996 is the self-described "very liberal", which is more intuitive. Is it because the Obama effect has already taken effect, or people are optimistic about ABTB (anyone better than Bush)? Assuming the author is right that the question was the exact same, some differences could be attributed to surrounding questions (did previous questions take an optimistic slant, or pessimistic). It's been a while since I've done any good survey construction or studied the practice, but each of the surveyor names give some sense of impartiality.

Brooks goes on to write:

A more interesting question than what afflicts extreme liberals today is why folks outside their ranks (including moderate liberals) are failing so miserably to muster up much rage in the current environment. One theory is that ordinary Americans have been lulled into a culture of complacency -- or in the fancier language of academics, they're suffering from "false consciousness."

Another possibility is that most Americans recognize that, while gas is expensive and our grocery money doesn't go as far as it did last year, we are still an enormously prosperous and fortunate nation.

The first seems more likely, the second seems to give americans to much credit. I wonder to what effect selection bias, or the use of the term "outrage" has? Both of these can draw on the mortgage crisis--perhaps increased transience caused by the meltdown shifted the response. Gallup should have ways to work around that, I would hope. But secondly is the difference between outrage and fear. I can't really reconcile that with the 1996 results though. At this time, however, maybe people are more afraid of the general climate moreso than outraged--a split vote if you will. And even if people are less outraged, Congress still has a 9% approval rating and Bush has about the lowest presidential approval ratings on record, so people are definitely pissed off about something.