POLS 1101 Lecture 16Outline of Last Lecture I. The Appeals Procedure in the State and Federal SystemsII. Common Law and Legal PrecedentIII. The Path of a Supreme Court CaseIV. Supreme Court Justices’ IdeologyV. Minority Rights versus Majority RuleVI. Restraint versus ActivismVII. Politics of Judicial AppointmentsOutline of Current Lecture I. Public Opinion in a Democratic SystemII. Measuring Public OpinionA. Early AttemptsB. Random SamplingC. Possible BiasesIII. Political Attitudes and SocializationIV. Political Attitudes and InterestsV. Group AttachmentsVI. The “American Creed”Current Lecture: Public Opinion- Background Effects and ConsiderationsI. Public Opinion in a Democratic System- Public opinion: collection of attitudes, opinions, and preferences of the general public- What individuals think about certain issues like gun control, etc.- Balance between being a trustee and a delegate- Trustee: chosen to do what they believe is right- Delegate: chosen to do what the people believe is right- Multiple principals: Impossible to be responsive to everyone- Principle-Agent Problem: agents that we have hired… are they responsive to what we say we want or responsive in our interests? II. Measuring Public OpinionA. Early Attempts: Survey work- National magazines published “straw polls”: send out ballots to readers to geta sense of what they were going to predict for an election… didn’t really reflect what the entire public wanted- Since the 1940s voting intentions measured with random samplingo Polls are more accurate the closer to the electiono 1936: literary digest sent out thousands of sample ballots asking who the people were going to vote for during the upcoming electiono Results and what really happened were absolutely opposite… not everybody sent a ballot back eithero George Gallop: ran a poll with 1500 people a few weeks before the election with random sampling… nailed the results!B. Random Sampling- 500-1,200 respondents in polls for presidential electionso Over 1,000 is preferred o 1600- margin of error, you need another 2000+ to decrease your margin of error- Try to get the sample of respondents to mirror the population- Use methods of random selectiono Random Digit Dialingo National Selection Study/Survey Conduct survey in person: EXPENSIVE Best sample/response though  Every four years- Margin of error is key to interpretationC. Possible Biases- Samples are biased when they do not reflect the populationa. Self-selection: people might hang up on you or not respond to your ballotsb. Phones and Random Digit Dialingo Machines that dial a number randomly that is valid, then connects to operator (land lines)o Cell phones: you have to have a person to actually dial in the numbers themselves c. Non-response- Question wording, priming (potential attitude is associated with something positive/negative), and framing can create error by influencing answersIII. Political Attitudes and Socialization- Parents’ political views strongly affect partisanship and ideology- Partisanship and ideology tend to be persistent- Friends or co-workers can act as “cue givers”- Major world eventsIV. Political Attitudes and Interests- Material interests are often correlated with political attitudesa. Yet, some people have attitudes that seemingly conflict with material interestsb. Altruism- Do people make decisions based on rationality? Often not.a. Habit of choosing the best choice among available options given one’s interests and information.V. Group Attachments- People who are irrational on an individual level are often rational on a collective level- Group interest sometimes trumps individual interest- Group leaders foster support of group interestsVI. The “American Creed”- Most Americans have a set of widely shared values- Most Americans think the political system works pretty well- Most Americans believe in First Amendment