Social Factors and Public
Opinion
Michael Milburn
Psychology 335
Why would you expect differences on
social grouping variables?
• For example, age, gender, education, income, race
• Age:
– Growth (maturation)
– Living a different times/having different experiences (cohort
effect)
• Gender: differential socialization (Fivush)
• Education/Income
– Different opportunities/interact with different people
– Different interests
– Different expectations in life
• Race
– Different opportunities/experiences/interactions
• O.J. Simpson case—National Jury Project
Examining Relationships between
Demographic Variables and Public
Opinion
• Create contingency table of responses
• Raw counts in each cell of the table
• Percentage across levels of the dependent
variable
• Identify the causal model
• DV: Typically the opinion variable
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
25
20
15
Young
20
25
30
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
25
20
15
Young
20
25
30
Question: What is the DV?
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
25
20
15
Young
20
25
30
Opinion is DV, so calculate row percentages
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
25
20
15
60
Young
20
25
30
75
Step 1: calculate row totals
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
25/60
20/60
15/60
60
Young
20/75
25/75
30/75
75
Step 2: divide by row totals
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
42%
33%
25%
100%
Young
27%
33%
40%
100%
Step 3: calculate percents
“Do you agree that we should
have dropped the atomic bomb
on Japan during WWII?”
N = 135
Yes
Maybe
No
Old
42%
33%
25%
100%
Young
27%
33%
40%
100%
Question: Are proportions the same? Do the same percentage of
old and young people agree?
National Election Survey (NES)
Data--Examples
• Focus on the ideological (LiberalConservative) aspect of the relationships
among the variables
Historical Relationships
Further examples
• Opinion questions answered on a 1 to 7
scale
• I grouped together responses (1-2), (3,4,5),
and (6-7) into three columns
1988 NES Data
More 1988 Data
A final 1988 question
Summary
•
•
•
•
•
Different domains of opinion
Foreign policy/economic/social issues
For the relationship of income/education:
FP: no relationship
Economic: more conservative as
income/education increase
• Social: more liberal as income/education
increase