Public Opinion
• What is “public opinion”?
• Definition? Aggregate of
individual attitudes or beliefs
shared by some portion of the
population
Defining Public Opinion
2
How public opinion is formed:
Political Socialization
• What is political socialization?
• Process by which people acquire
political beliefs and attitudes
• How do people acquire political
attitudes and beliefs?
• People acquire political attitudes,
including party identification, through
relationships with family, peers and
coworkers.
Sources of Political Socialization
• Family – AP TIP!!
• Education
• Peers and Peer Group
• Opinion Leaders
• Media
• Political Events
4
Impact of the Media
• How does media impact and
influence public opinion?
• Informs public about issues and
events – agenda sets
• Provides forum for political
leaders
• How has technology and
changes in media affected
political socialization and
influence media has on public
opinion?
Political Preferences and Voting Behavior
Elections: The Most Important
Influences
• Party Identification
• Perception of the Candidates
• Issue Preferences
• Various Socioeconomic and demographic
factors influence political preferences
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Influences on Political Preferences and
Voting Behavior
• What are socioeconomic and demographic factors?
• How do they influence political preference?
• Education?
• Economic Status?
• Religious Influence? Religiosity? Evangelicalism?
• Race & Ethnicity?
• Gender? What is Gender Gap and what are causes of it?
• Geography?
Life Cycle & Generational Effect
Political Culture
• How people feel about politics
Political Efficacy
• People’s belief that they can influence government and policies
Trust in government
SOURCE: Gallup Polls; Percent who answered
“Always ” or “Most of the
time ” to the question, “Do you trust the government in Washington to do
what is right? ”
Mean Percentage of Citizens Voting in Legislative Elections, 1945-2002
Age and Political Participation, 1996
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
18-25
26-35
36-50
51-65
66 & older
Age
Voted in 1996
Attended
campaign
Persuaded
rallies
Worked
SOURCE: American National Election Studies
others
for party/candidate
Wore
button
or bumper
Contributed money
sticker
Reasons for Changes in Political Socialization
over Time
• Less Americans associate with either of the two main parties
• Divided government occurs often
• Rise in political cynicism and disaffection
• People voting less and less
Characteristics of a valid, scientific public
opinion poll
• Randomized sample
• Representative sample
• Question wording (unbiased,
unambiguous)
• Large sample size/low margin of
error
Measuring Public Opinion
• Sampling Techniques
• Representative sampling: sample
representative of voters in population
• The most important principle in
sampling, or poll taking, is randomness.
Every person should have a known
chance, and especially an equal chance,
of being sampled.
16
Measuring Public Opinion: Problems with
Polls
• What problems can be created by
public opinion polls?
• Problems with Polls
•
•
•
•
Telephone polling problems
Sampling Error
Polling Questions
Push Polls
17
Types of Polling
• Random Sampling: everyone has equal chance of being chosen
• Systematic Sampling: Choose from list at fixed interval (every 10
people on the list)
• Stratified Sampling: Choose from specific groups (all girls)
• not individuals) are chosen at random (from all classes in the school)
Measuring Public Opinion
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Measuring Public Opinion
20
Public Opinion & Policymaking
• Public opinion hard to discern
depending on the issue
• Americans tend to turn to govt to
solve problems
• Govt policy tends to follow public
opinion
• Examples of changes in public opinion
and resulting policy?
• How does public opinion limit
government?
• Can restrain govt from taking truly
unpopular actions
How does public opinion influence voting
decisions of members of Congress?
• Strong public opinion expressed
in polling results =
• Desire of Congressmen to get reelected
• Congressmen perceived
obligation/duty to represent their
constituents
• Competitive re-elections =
• Desire to get re-elected, if
opponent responds to polls, offers
what public wants, threatens reelection
How is Congress’ voting decisions limited
despite public opinion?
• Legislators’ voting records =
• Legislators want to avoid being
perceived as indecisive by
voters/supporters – don’t want to
perceived as changing like the wind
• Party leadership =
• Legislators avoid the risk of losing party
support
• Or legislators may ignore public opinion
to gain party support
Public Opinion and the Political Process
24
Trust in government
SOURCE: Gallup Polls; Percent who answered
“Always ” or “Most of the
time ” to the question, “Do you trust the government in Washington to do
what is right? ”
Political Culture
• How people feel about politics
Political Efficacy
• People’s belief that they can influence government and policies
Age and Political Participation, 1996
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
18-25
26-35
36-50
51-65
66 & older
Age
Voted in 1996
Attended
campaign
Persuaded
rallies
Worked
SOURCE: American National Election Studies
others
for party/candidate
Wore
button
or bumper
Contributed money
sticker
Mean Percentage of Citizens Voting in Legislative Elections, 1945-2002
Web Links
• Polling Report : An up-to-date and easy-to-use Web site
that offers polls and their results organized by topic:
www.pollingreport.com.
• Real Clear Politics (RCP): Daily digest of poll results,
election analysis, and political commentary as well as
an archive of past political polls:
www.realclearpolitics.com.
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Political Preferences and Voting Behavior
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Measuring Public Opinion
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