Chapter 5: Public Opinion Flashcards
- Why are agents of socialization important to the study of politics? Which agents of socialization are m
Agents of socialization influence our political attitudes and orientations. The strongest influence is Family and life cycle effect, kids usually pick up the ideology of their parents, and as we grow old we generally become more conservative. Next is Religion, which correlates to family but different religions do have different attitudes. Education is next but can be more a reinforcer dependent on how you look at it. After that I would put events then the media, events can be strong but it depends on the situation. Media on the other hand often doesn’t have the power to change your views, it usually just reinforces your previously held beliefs.
- What is sampling? What are the main conditions to ensure a proper sample? How is such a condition achieved?
What is the sampling error (or, the margin of error?).
Sampling is taking a small amount of the total population to get a general idea of what the general population believes. Two main conditions must be met, first is it has to be random meaning everyone has an equal chance of being contacted. The next is size, which doesn’t have to be that big since we have the margin of error, but bigger is usually better. The margin of error is the difference between the percentage we got out of the sample vs the percentage if you were to ask the entire population.
- What is meant by selection bias? What is oversampling, and how does it occur? What about self-selected samples?
What are some examples of each?
Selection bias is when your sample frame is only focusing on a specific group, and making your population frame narrow. Basically, you aren’t giving everyone an equal chance of being contacted giving a poor representation of the population that’s being studied. Say you want to find out who wants to increase college tuition, maybe most in the city want to increase it, but if you ONLY ask a college class chances are most if not all will want to DECREASE tuition.
Oversampling is when you sample a certain area or group excessively. Time is also a play because if you oversample at a specific time you can limit who you reach because you may call on a time where say most are in church, so you may not get many conservative respondents.
Self-selected sample is mostly seen with media polls. But most who consume a media outlet really only consume it to reinforce their beliefs. So CNN viewers are going to be more liberal because CNN is more liberal, so if they send out a poll its only going to reach CNN viewers who are more liberal so the poll results will be more favorable to liberal views. So its not a representation of the total population, just the population who watches CNN.
- Describe three main features of a legitimate poll (versus a non-legitimate, problematic poll).
First of a legitimate poll is great question wording, they aren’t biased, confusing, or leading. It also lists its sample size giving us how many people responded. And it also allows responders to respond with I don’t know.
A problematic poll can have issues on the collection side and delivery side of things. On the collection side of things the questions can be worded in a way that gets certain responses over others. Can be value-laden questions or framing- questions. Another issue can be in measurement, perhaps the people conducting the research simply mess up their calculations and report false numbers. One issue on the delivery side lies on the question and on the responder. Can they understand issue? If not are they willing to answer that they don’t know?
- What issues might Congress and the president have in responding to public opinion polls? What about the Courts?
Historically, which branch has followed public opinion most closely?
First of the three branches ideally should listen to public opinion, but of course, sometimes the ideas that are being supported are objectively bad so that’s one thing that they need to balance. Another issue that congress has is constituency-based, all representatives are elected by a specific group of people in the US, so even if the policy has national support they may have to vote against that policy if the people that voted them in are opposed to that policy. The president doesn’t have that huge of a constituency issue, since of course they are voted in by the general population, but the executive branch can’t create laws, so their main concern is to really try to create public opinion. The courts can’t always decide what they feel is best since their decision can be ignored by the states or federal government, as seen with segregation. So the courts closely follow public opinion for this reason.
- What are the primary factors associated with increased political participation?
Three primarily exist, those being age, income, and education. As all through go up so is the likely hood of you participating in politics. So a 19-year-old, broke, high school graduate is less likely to vote than a 60-year-old, 200k income a year, medical doctor.
- Identify and describe the three key constitutional provisions that have historically addressed voting inequities, and how the implementation of each actually turned out - and why.
The first provision was the 15th amendment which allowed freed black men the right to vote. But this wasn’t the case since many states enacted policies restricting voters such as poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent less educated and wealthy blacks from voting. The second provision was the 19th amendment which allowed women to vote, of course, there was still push back from groups but by the time this amendment was pushed out many states had already allowed women to vote. The last provision was the 26th amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, due to the draft in the Vietnam war. All of these greatly increased the amount of potential voters.
- What is the “cost-benefit” analysis of voting? Describe possible elements of decreasing “costs” and increasing
“benefits.”
The cost/benefit analysis asks if the costs are worth the benefits you receive from voting.
We could decrease the cost by changing voting day to allow more people time, maybe instead of the voting day we have a voting week? Maybe when online voting is more secure we switch to that, but in the meantime, we could increase mail-in voting. we could also make registration easier and lower requirements because the more time or money is involved the fewer people vote.
We could increase the benefit by showing people that more votes mean more representation, if less vote then minority rules so a candidate who is less responsive to the public is voted in. Elections often also hold implications for other elections so voting is important.
- What are the main causes of continued lower participation in America, even when accounting for a population that is older, richer, and more educated?
The first is apathy, most Americans either dislike candidates or other people in government, feel as if it’s not worth it to vote, dislike voting requirements, or are generally too busy. The other is efficacy, meaning that sometimes due to gerrymandering or outside forces their vote is essentially not counted. And the final reason is contentment, voters may be happy so they won’t feel as forced to go out and vote, after all, voting is a civic duty, not an obligation.
- What is the greatest loss that individuals suffer when they choose not to participate?
