Chapter 13 Flashcards
Public Opinion
those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.
Early Polling (1920s-`40s)
Start of scientific, nationwide, public opinion polling. Not without difficulties.
Take Away Points
Early public opinion polls were subject to error as good polling techniques were poorly understood.
Such mistakes led to spectacular failures in predicting presidential elections.
Public opinion polling has improved after these prominent failures. Despite this improvement, caution is still a good policy.
(Americans are considered to be) rationally ignorant
it costs more to be informed about most aspects of politics than would be gained in return for being informed. So they don’t.
3 Kinds of Polls
Tracking Polls
Exit Polls
Push Polls
Tracking Polls
these polls measure how well a candidate is doing during a campaign. (ie: who’s winning the race!).
Exit Polls
These polls are conducted on those individuals who have just voted, and are often used to call elections and give indications as to why people voted the way they did.
Push Polls
These are not designed to be scientific, but rather to convince the poll taker to take the side of one cause or another. (ie “How do you feel about candidate X being an atheists?”).
(Good polls use a) random sample
- everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being selected.
- A good random sample with enough participants guarantees that all segments of a population are represented in the correct proportions.
A SAMPLE SIZE of about 1,200 is enough to represent the entire US population.
the number of respondents in a poll
Bias
any kind of systematic skewing, or mistakes, in a poll’s estimation.
The Illusion of Saliency
occurs when a two category response set makes an issue look contentious when it is in fact not very salient.
The Illusion of Central Tendency
occurs when we think that public opinion is normally distributed (ie most people are in the middle) when in fact it is not.
