German Internet Panel, Wave 50 (November 2020)

The German Internet Panel (GIP) is an infrastructure project. The GIP serves to collect data about individual attitudes and preferences which are relevant for political and economic decision-making processes.<br>The questionnaire contains numerous experimental variations in the survey instruments. For more information, see the study documentation.

Subjects: Experiment: agreement with different statements on income inequality with varying response categories (unipolar 4, 5, 6 and 7): workers need strong unions to be able to protect their working conditions and wages, large income differences are justified to reward different talents and achievements appropriately, for a society to be just, differences in people´s standard of living should be small, social benefits lead to more equality in society); satisfaction with the response categories offered;

Experiment on Political Effectiveness with varying response categories (I can understand and appreciate important political issues well, politicians make an effort to maintain close contact with the population, I dare to actively participate in a conversation about political issues, politicians care about what people like me think); Interest in politics; Social position: self-ranking on a top-bottom scale;

Perception of the federal government as divided or united; perception of the parties CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, Die Linke and AfD as divided or united; satisfaction with the performance of the federal government; satisfaction with the performance of the parties CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, Die Linke, AfD and FDP in the Bundestag; trust in the German Bundestag; satisfaction with democracy;

Experiment on the financial transaction tax for securities trading in politics: decision for proposal A, which provides for a relatively low financial transaction tax for securities trading of 0.1 per cent, or proposal B, which provides for a relatively high financial transaction tax for securities trading of 2 per cent;

Importance of the area of fiscal policy; self-assessment of competence in understanding fiscal policy issues; assessment of Proposal A overall and Proposal B overall; Proposal A should become law with the majority in the Bundestag; Proposal B should become law against the majority in the Bundestag;

Experiment on the topic of immigration and crime: attitude towards the topic of immigration and crime: increase or decrease in problems with crime in Germany due to immigrants; self-assessment of competence in understanding political issues in the area of immigration and integration; factual belief on the topic of immigrants and crime based on different excerpts from an article from a national daily newspaper or in the social media: estimated share of immigrants in all suspects of bodily harm in 2018; certainty of one´s own statement; interpretation of the stated share of immigrants in all suspects of bodily harm in Germany; immigration opportunities for foreigners to Germany should be facilitated or restricted; information shown from the website of a national daily newspaper or the information from the social media corresponded to the truth;

Environment: Germany should reduce or increase its efforts to develop renewable energies; self-assessment of competence in understanding political issues in the field of environment and climate protection; factual conviction on the topic of renewable energies based on different excerpts from an article from a national daily newspaper or in social media: estimated share of renewable energies in total electricity consumption in Germany in 2019; certainty of one´s own statement; evaluation of the stated share of renewable energies in electricity consumption in Germany; importance of the area of environmental and climate protection should be higher or lower; information shown from the website of a national daily newspaper or the information from social media corresponded to the truth;

Experiment on policy failure: greatest responsibility for policy failure in general and in the areas of economy, labour market and social affairs, health, environment and climate protection (the Federal Chancellor, the governing parties CDU/CSU, the governing party SPD, the federal government as a whole, the opposition parties, the interest groups, the states in the Bundesrat, the Federal Constitutional Court, the European Union, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), all equally, none of those listed, others);

Experiment on Fake News in online news reports on various topics (researchers publish study: electromagnetic waves cause cancer - 5G causes cancer, Corona fine catalogue git only for Germans: mass prayer by Muslims remains unpunished, CDU rejects speed limit demand, revenue from deposit bottles to be taxed in future, Wuhan: thousands celebrated pool party without distance, children slow down virus according to study);

Impact of measures to contain the Corona pandemic in Germany (economic damage greater than societal benefit vs. societal benefit greater than economic damage); perceived threat of the Corona virus; likelihood of becoming seriously ill with the Corona virus oneself.

Demography: sex; age (year of birth, categorised); education: highest school-leaving certificate; highest professional qualification; marital status; household size; employment status; German citizenship; frequency of private internet use; federal state.

Additionally coded were: Respondent ID; household ID, GIP; person ID (within household); year of recruitment (2012, 2014, 2018); interview date; current online status; assignment to experimental groups; order of questions shown; device type (Smartphone, Tablet, Other).

Questionnaire evaluation (interesting, varied, relevant, long, difficult, too personal); assessment of the survey overall; respondent made further comments on the questionnaire.