It has often been observed in experimental studies that the reliability of items increases if the same questions are asked of the same respondents more than once. This phenomenon, called the “Socratic effect,†also occurs in nonexperimental, short-wave panel studies. In the first...

This article focuses on three main points: (1) Because a short-wave panel study such as the ALLBUS-Retest Study 1984 is suited optimally for reliability estimations, the quality of a larger number of items concerning attitudes about the welfare state and inequality and toward a minority group in...