PS 101 1st Edition Lecture 7 Outline of Last Lecture I. Basics of Political SocializationII. Agents of Socialization -Families, School, Peer Groups, Media, EventsIII. Patterns of Political Socialization-Preschool, Elementary School, Adolescence, Adulthood, Old AgeIV. Socialization Across Time-Life Cycle Effects, Period Effects, Cohort EffectsV. Political Culture-Components-Comparisons Outline of Current Lecture I. The Civic Culture (Cont’d from previous lecture)II. Political Knowledge-What do people know?-Why do we care?III. Early Studies of Opinion-Critiques-Revised ViewsIV. Surveying Political PrinciplesV. Political Ideology-Identification in the U.S.Current LectureI. The Civic Culture (Continued from last lecture)A. In combination, these produce three main democratic political cultures1. Parochial—low awareness, expectations, participation a. e.g. Mexico2. Subject—higher awareness and expectations, but low participationa. e.g. Italy, Germany3. Participatory—high awareness, expectations, participation a. e.g., U.S., Great BritainThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.What People Know and Believe about Politics:II. Political KnowledgeA. What do we mean by political knowledge? 1. Factual recall2. Ability to make “competent” choicesB. Why do we care? 1. Views of “textbook citizen”a. Do people match this? Which democratic process works best?2. Majoritarian vs. pluralist views of democracy3. Links between knowledge and opinionC. What do People Know?1. In recent general knowledge surveys:a. Almost everyone knows the name of the Presidentb. About 50% of people know the name of their Congresspersonc. About 40% know the name of the Chief Justiced. About 40% can name all three branches of governmente. About 50% know how many people are in the Senatef. About 75% can name one right guaranteed to us by the First Amendment (but only 6% can name all four)2. Some common misperceptionsD. How Should We Evaluate This?1.Why might it be a problem? a. Lack of participationb. Voting without knowledge2. Why might it not?a. People don’t necessarily need all of the information— example: they may not need a politician’s background information (like where they are from) to make certain choicesIII. Early Studies of OpinionA. First studies in the late 1940’s and early 1950’sB. Little evidence that people held stable opinions at all1. High levels of inconsistency between questions2. High levels of change across time3. Low levels of factual information4. Not able to explain why they liked a candidate or why they were liberal/ conservativeC. Researchers concluded that almost no one had high “levels of conceptualization”1. Holding principles that were consistent with one another and stable across timeD. Critiques of Early Studies1. Results were not surprising because people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics2. Opinions have become more consistent in recent years than in the original studies that took place decades ago3. Researchers were looking for the wrong thingsE. Revised Views on Opinion1. Two different types of opinionsa. Some, like ideology or partisanship, are stable across timeb. Others, like particular policy views, may change2. Most opinions are latenta. People don’t walk around with fully formed opinions in their head. Instead think about a variety of questions… notall of them are thought throughIV. Surveying Political PrinciplesA. New Theory of Opinion1. Rather than having pre-formed opinions on all issues, people have lots of considerations floating around2. When they are asked a survey question, they use the considerations that come to mind most immediately3. Can explain why we might see inconsistency in survey responsesB. An Example1. Pretend your head is a hat full of papers with questions full ofconsiderations. You then reach in and draw a question. Depending on your views and what you are thinking at the time you draw, is how you will likely respond to the question.V. Political IdeologyA. Formal definition1. A consistent set of values and beliefs about the proper purpose andscope of government2. If we know someone’s ideology, we should be able to predict their specific policy opinionB. Informal definition1. Relies on people’s self-reports2. They are liberal or conservative because they say they are!C.Ideological Identification in the U.S.1. Liberals in Americaa. Are generally Democrats b. Advocatei. Little government interference in people's moral, religious, and intellectual livesii. Some government intervention in the economy to insure libertiesiii. Belief in the need to work within the international community for peaceful resolution of conflicts2. Conservatives in Americaa. Are generally Republicansb. Advocatei. Reduced governmental control of economy—regulations hamper growth and lead to inefficiencyii. Preservation of traditional values--government should be more involved in morality and religious issuesiii. Belief in a strong military, opposed to ceding authority to international organizations like the UNVI. But It Gets More Complicated!A. 2011 Pew Center Study Identifies nine distinct groups1. http://www.people-press.org/typology/quiz/B. Ideology and Votinga. Typology groups vote differently— though not deterministicC. Individual to Aggregate Opinion1. How do we measure public opinion?2. What does the “shape” of public opinion distributions tell us? a. Bell curve, normal curve, etc.—has implications for how politics works3. Can we trust political polls and surveys?4. What are some challenges in doing a good