American Government Exam 3 Book Outline Chapter 10 Public Opinion What is Public Opinion Measuring Public Opinion o It consists of those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed According to this definition every government democratic or otherwise has to pay attention to public opinion in some fashion o Modern efforts to measure shape and exploit public opinion have spawned two linked industries scientific polling and public relations The first is devoted to sounding out the public on an endless array of issues and the other to marketing ideas policies and politicians o Not until well into the twentieth century was scientific polling developed as a tool for systematically investigating the opinions of ordinary people o The basic techniques developed to measure public opinion accurately are simple in concept but often difficult to carry out in practice select a random sample of the population of interest ask the people in the sample some appropriate questions about their views and count up their answers The larger the sample the more closely the sample s answers will approximate the answers the pollster would get if the entire population could be asked As the sample gets larger however the rate of improvement in accuracy declines it makes little sense to use a sample size larger than 1 200 to 1 500 people With numbers in this range researchers can be confident that nineteen times out of twenty the sample s division on a typical question will fall within 3 percentage points of the entire population s division o A truly random sample of any population is rarely feasible however because there is no single directory where everyone is conveniently listed and so can be given a perfectly equal chance of being selected which is what strict random sampling requires o Another potential problem with interpreting polls lies in the questions which respondents may not always understand or may answer incorrectly by for example offering an instant opinion on an issue they have never thought about before o Every president since Jimmy Carter 1977 1981 has had an in house pollster taking regular readings of the public s pulse o Finally albeit unintentionally the work to measure and shape public opinion has helped individual citizens to act collectively Individual expressions of opinion to influence public policy are subject to the standard free rider problem because it is exceedingly unlikely that any single person s message will make a difference But polls and mobilization campaigns can produce collective expressions of opinion that politicians ignore at their peril The Origins of Public Opinions Attitudes o Basically and attitude is an organized and consistent manner of thinking feeling and reacting with regard to people groups social issues or more generally any event in one s environment o Individuals differ widely in the attitudes they bring to bear on political choices Some people have an elaborate set of informed organized internally consistent attitudes that allow them to understand evaluate and respond to almost any political phenomenon that catches their attention But most people have more loosely structured sets of political attitudes not necessarily consistent with one another or well informed by facts and concepts Ideologies o Elaborately organized sets of political attitudes often take the form of political ideologies In theory ideologies promote consistency among political attitudes by connecting them to something greater a more general principle or set of principles In practice ideologies often combine attitudes linked more by coalitional politics than by principle o In American politics today liberals typically favor using government to reduce economic inequalities champion the rights of disadvantaged groups such as racial minorities and women and tolerate a more diverse range of social behaviors They prefer a smaller defense establishment and usually are less willing to use military force in international politics They believe that the rich should be taxed at higher rates to finance social welfare programs Conservatives distrust gov t and have greater faith in private enterprise and free markets but they are more willing to use gov t to enforce traditional moral standards They favor a larger military and more assertive pursuit of national self interest Conservatives advocate lower taxes particularly on investment income to stimulate growth and to restrict the gov ts capacity to finance social welfare programs o Adopting a liberal or conservative pattern is not the only way people organize their political attitudes Some studies suggest that a person s political attitudes reflect a small number of core values such as individualism support for equal opportunity moral traditionalism or opposition to big gov t Partisanship o A party might be just a shorthand cue for some voters but a source of personal identity for others Cumulative practical experience with leaders and policies might well strengthen or weaken an individual s sense of psychological identification with a party Conersely gut feelings about the parties may simply be the brain s efficient way of styoring the results of cumulative experiences providing a shortcut to action without further cognitive effort However interpreted party remains for a large majority of voters a default cut unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise Americans interpret political phenomena in ways that favor the preferered party o Party identification like other attitudes affects beliefs as well as opinions Attitudes introduce bias into perceptions and interpretations of political information because people tend to pay more attention and give more credence to sources and information that confirm rather than challenge their beliefs Acquiring Opinions o Political socialization as the process of acquiring political attitudes is known takes place during childhood and young adulthood but new experiences can alter attitudes at any stage of life o Politics is primarily about the provision of collective goods and ordinary citizens can achieve politicall ends only through collective action it is logical that political opinions would reflect attitudes arising more from collective than from personal experiences Information o Generally people tend to develop more complex richly informed attitudes only when the payoff is greater than the cost of doing so Individuals raised among politically active people or who spend
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