POS 3204 Study Guide Exam 1 Public Opinion Public opinion is the sum of aggregation of private opinions on any particular issue or set of issues More complete includes the aggregation of opinion but also how people think about politics where a person s thoughts and opinions come from and the impacts of those opinions on policy Classical Democracy A Classical Democracy is the Greek model for democracy which emphasizes high levels of opinion in public matters magnanimity generosity instead of selfishness and the public s say in all policy decisions Representative Democracy A Representative Democracy is based off the idea that citizens are not capable of what is required of them to truly participate in policy either because they are not knowledgeable enough or are too self interested This is based off the claim that a direct democracy is not feasible in a large country Similar to elitist and pluralist concepts Normative Democratic Theories The three normative democratic theories are participatory elitist and pluralist Participatory Democracy A participatory democracy emphasizes citizen involvement over the alternative forms of democracy This form claims that citizens are apathetic to policy only because they are powerless not the other way around By forcing participation one can lead to more democratic citizens Elitist Democracy An elitist democracy states that elections are the main mechanism for the public to express their preferences According to this form politicians are only indirectly accountable to the public Pluralist Democracy In a pluralist democracy the preferences of the public are expressed through interest groups such as the NRA Literary Digest Poll The Literary Digest Poll is an example of polls failing in the past Literary Digest would conduct a sample from motor vehicle registration lists or from the phone book However in the past especially this would result in a bias towards the upper crust of society because the lower class could not afford phones or cars and therefore were excluded from the polls This was improved by the Gallup Poll in 1936 when quota sampling was introduced still not the best form of polling They used in person interviews rather than mailed questionnaires This took steps to help take the guesswork out of estimating where people stood on various politicians Opinion An opinion is one s view or judgment formed about a political object Opinions are influenced by beliefs values and emotions According to Converse 1964 people especially the lesser educated people are found to not be ideologically consistent Possible reasons for this are that people experience true attitude changes or that they have non attitudes Converse s answer Belief A belief is a feeling that something is true Types of beliefs include factual information and stereotypes An example of a belief is that the Republican Party is against high taxes A belief does not have to be true people can hold factually inaccurate beliefs An example of this is the belief that Obama was not born in the United States Values Values are a particular kind of belief They are global principles of how important a generalized concept is to a person Examples of values are values that are considered to be America such as equality of opportunity and individualism Emotion Emotion is another factor that influences a person s opinion Emotions are feelings that a political object creates and are not always subject to rational change Examples include the Daisy ad of 1964 or the feelings a person experiences when they look at a picture of President Obama Social Desirability Bias Social Desirability Bias occurs during surveys when respondents fail to express their true opinion in order to please the interviewer This is especially prevalent among people who are not knowledgable about politics or leaners Potential Polling Biases Potential polling biases include selection bias self selection response order wording order and environmental Selection Bias A selection bias occurs when a random sample is not really random Examples include random selections that are made up extensively of the wealthy minorities or those with different incentives For example a college collected a random sampling of people to provide insight on what food students would like to see appear in the dining halls The reward for this survey was a candy bar Thus it was not a truly random sample it favored people with tendencies to unhealthy eating habits Those who tend to eat healthier might have been dissuaded from participating in the survey because they were not inspired by the incentive Self Selection Bias Self selection bias occurs when the variable of interest is not randomly assigned For example if you examine whether or not a test preparation class helps to improve test scores you divide the students into two groups those who took the test prep class and those who did not and then see if one set of scores was higher than the other However you may find bias in the fact that students who take test prep classes may tend to score higher already because they care more about their grades therefore the variable of interest was not randomly assigned Another example is political knowledge and education Response Order Bias Response order bias occurs when participants are given a survey and they are more likely to select a certain option choice usually the first answer they see rather than reading it and choosing the answer that correctly answers the question Wording Bias Wording bias occurs when a respondant is swayed to answer a certain way based on how the question was worded For example the question Sometimes you hear it said that of a law that certain types of federal contracts go to minority contractors Do you favor or oppose such a law may prompt a different response than The Congress of the United States has passed a law to ensure that a certain number of congrats go to minority firms Do you favor or oppose such a law simply because one is worded in a more positive way than the other Order Bias Order bias occurs when a previous question affects how a participant might answer following questions For example the question Should the United States allow Communist newspaper reporters to go here and send back the news as they see it was answered No 45 of the time However when preceded by the question Should a communist country like Russia allow American newspaper reporters to go there and send the news back as they see it the first question was