Chapter Five
Public Opinion and
Political
Socialization
Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy
• Public Opinion is the collective attitude of
the citizens on a given issue or question.
• Statistical sampling theory does not claim
that a sample exactly matches the
population, only that it reflects the
population with some predictable degree
of accuracy.
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Three Factors Determine the
Accuracy of a Sample:
• How the sample is randomly selected
• The size of the sample—the larger the
sample, the more accurately it represents
the population
• The amount of variation in the population
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Figure 5.1:
Gallup Poll
Accuracy
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Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy
(Cont’d)
• The majoritarian and pluralist models of
democracy differ greatly in their
assumptions about the role of public
opinion in democratic government.
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Majoritarian Model
• According to the classic majoritarian
model, the government should do what a
majority of the public wants.
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Pluralist Model
• In contrast, pluralists argue that the public
as a whole seldom demonstrates clear,
consistent opinions on the day-to-day
issues of government.
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Distribution of Public Opinion
• Government must analyze the shape and
the stability of the distribution of public
opinion.
• Shape of the Distribution: the shape of
the opinion distribution depicts the pattern
of all the responses when counted and
plotted.
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Three Patterns of Distribution
• Skewed Distribution: An asymmetrical
but generally bell-shaped distribution (of
opinions); its mode, or most frequent
response, lies off to one side.
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Three Patterns of Distribution (Cont’d)
• Bimodal Distribution: A distribution (of
opinions) that shows two responses being
chosen about as frequently as each other.
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Three Patterns of Distribution (Cont’d)
• Normal Distribution: A symmetrical bellshaped distribution (of opinions) centered
on a single mode, or most frequent
response.
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Figure 5.2: Three Distributions of Opinion
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The Distribution of Public Opinion
• A distribution of opinions that shows little
change over time is a stable distribution.
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Political Socialization
• Political Socialization is the complex process
by which people acquire their political values.
• Agents of Early Socialization include two
fundamental principles that characterize early
learning
• Primacy principle—what is learned first is learned
best
• Structuring principle—what is learned first
structures later learning. Agents that structure early
socialization are the family, school and community
and peers.
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Political Socialization (Cont’d)
• Continuing Socialization includes
newspaper and television news for the
older American’s source of political news,
while younger Americans are more likely
to rely on radio, magazines or the Internet.
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Figure 5.3: Socialization, Age, and
Public Opinion
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Social Groups and Political Values
• No two people are influenced by precisely
the same socialization agents or in
precisely the same way. People with
similar backgrounds, however, do tend to
develop similar political opinions.
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Social Groups and Political Values (Cont’d)
• Examples used to demonstrate this
included abortion and guaranteed
employment.
• Perspectives applied to these issues
included education, income, region, race
and ethnicity, religion and gender.
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Figure 5.4: Deviations of Group Opinion from National
Opinion on Two Questions of Order and Equality
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The Quality of Ideological Thinking
in Public Opinion
• Studies of the public’s ideological thinking
find that two themes run through people’s
minds when they are asked to describe
liberals and conservatives.
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From Values to Ideology
• Liberals are associated with change and
Conservatives with tradition.
• Liberals support intervention to promote
economic equality while Conservatives
favor less government intervention and
more individual freedom in economic
activities.
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The Quality of Ideological Thinking
in Public Opinion (Cont’d)
• Liberals are people who believe that
government should promote equality, even
if some freedom is lost in the process, but
who oppose surrendering freedom to
government-imposed order.
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The Quality of Ideological Thinking
in Public Opinion (Cont’d)
• Conservatives are people who place a
higher value on freedom than on equality
when the two conflict. Will restrict freedom
when threatened with the loss of order.
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The Quality of Ideological Thinking
in Public Opinion (Cont’d)
• Ideological Types in the United States also
include:
• Libertarians: People who favor freedom over
both equality and order
• Communitarians: People who favor equality
and order over freedom
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Figure 5.5: Respondents Classified by
Ideological Tendencies
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The Process of Forming Political Opinions
• Political knowledge is not randomly
distributed within our society. People with
equivalent knowledge of public affairs and
levels of conceptualization are equally
likely to call themselves liberals or
conservatives.
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The Process of Forming Political Opinions (Cont’d)
• The self-interest principle—the
implication that people choose what
benefits them personally—plays an
obvious role in how people form opinions
on government policies.
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The Process of Forming Political Opinions (Cont’d)
• An opinion schema constitutes a network
of organized knowledge and beliefs that
guide a person’s processing of information
regarding a particular subject.
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The Process of Forming Political Opinions (Cont’d)
• Public opinion on specific issues is molded
by political leaders, journalists and policy
experts.
• Politicians serve as cue-givers to
members of the public.
• Issue framing is the manner in which a
politician or interest group leader defines
an issue when presenting it to others.
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