Federal Parliament Election 1987 (By-Election Investigation)

Social fundamental philosophy. Attitudes to family, occupation and
church. Behavior at the polls and judgement on parties.

Topics: goals in life, shaping life and importance of areas of life
(scale); basic position on life (scale); party preference (ballot
procedure); party inclination; party inclination, temporary or in
principle; attitude to the state, to politics and to technology
(scales); personal change in party voted for; behavior at the polls in
the Federal Parliament elections of 1983 and 1987; absentee ballot or
trip to the election precinct in the Federal Parliament election of
1987; most important reasons for vote splitting; time of personal
voting decision; influence of election campaign on voting decision;
most important reasons for voting decision; major reasons for
non-participation in the election; interest in the previous Federal
Parliament election and personal significance of the result;
satisfaction with election result; preference for federal chancellor;
judgement on the vote gains of the FDP and of the Greens; assessment of
the problem-solving ability of the CDU/CSU FDP coalition; preferred
social values; sympathy scale for the parties and top politicians;
issue relevance and issue competence of the parties; way of life and
psychological self-characterization as well as political assertiveness
(scale); attitude to family, partnership and children (scale); work
orientation and career orientation (scale); reasons for choice of
occupation and expectations of an ideal occupation (scale); leisure
time needs and leisure orientations; consumption orientation and
attitude to fashion (scale); attitude to religion and church;
religiousness; ties to church; employment in the civil service;
self-assessment of social class; social mobility; party preference of
father; union membership and solidarity with trade unions; residential
status; number of eligible voters and children in the household;
possession of a telephone.

Also encoded was: presence of third persons during interview and their
degree of relationship to the respondent; intervention of others in the
course of the interview; willingness of respondent to cooperate;
reliability of responses; length of interview; date of interview.