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.