Analysis of Affective Polarization Through an Experimental Survey on the Ban of Prostitution in Spain

This dataset originates from a two-wave panel survey conducted among Spanish citizens, with a three-week interval between waves. The surveys were administered online through invitations to panelists, ensuring access via a secure digital platform.

Wave 1: Conducted from February 3 to February 16, 2022, with a sample of 1,200 respondents. The sample includes residents of Spain (excluding Ceuta and Melilla) aged 18 and older and is representative of the Spanish population by sex, age, and region. The sampling error is ±2.83%. During this wave, participants were asked about their attitudes toward the banning of prostitution. Specifically, they responded to the following question: “Now we would like to know more about a specific issue. In the case of prostitution, to what extent do you agree with a ban on prostitution?” Responses were recorded on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means "strongly disagree" and 10 means "strongly agree".

Wave 2: The second wave included 600 participants, all of whom had responded to the first wave and it incorporated an experimental design. Participants were exposed to one of two versions of a short, fictitious news podcast. The podcast described a political party's proposal to initiate a process to ban prostitution nationwide. Half of the participants were told that the proposing party was the conservative Popular Party (PP), while the other half were told it was the left-wing Socialist Party (PSOE).After listening to the podcast, participants answered the question: “To what extent do you agree with the proposal advocated in the video [prostitution ban]?” Responses again used a 0-to-10 scale, where 0 means "strongly disagree" and 10 means "strongly agree".

Participant assignment to the experimental treatments was conducted using stratified randomization to ensure balance across relevant demographic variables.

The data collection was carried out by 40dB (https://40db.es/), a reputable research firm. This dataset offers insights into affective polarization and public opinion on a contentious social policy issue, providing valuable data for political science and social research.