Political Socialization and Public Opinion

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Chapter 11

• Political Socialization and Public Opinion

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How Political Socialization and other Factors
Influence Opinion Formation

• Political Socialization
• The process through which an individual acquires
  particular political orientations
• The learning process by which people acquire
  their political beliefs and values

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Agents of Socialization

• Family
• School and Peers
• Mass Media
• Religious Beliefs
• Race and Ethnicity
• Gender
• Age
• Region

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The Impact of Events

• Key political events play a very important role
  in a persons socialization.
• Nixons resignation in 1974
• Impression on young people
• Government not always right or honest
• Survey in 2006 (18-20)
• Failed to report a single political event that
  affected them during their early school years
• Many of the major studies conducted in the
  aftermath of Watergate and the Vietnam War
• Trust in government

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Public Opinion and Polling

• What the public thinks about a particular issue
  or set of issues at any point in time
• Public opinion polls
• Interviews or surveys with samples of citizens
  that are used to estimate the feelings and
  beliefs of the entire population
• George Gallup

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The History of Public Opinion Research

• 1883 Boston Globe polled voters
• 1916 Literary Digest polling
• Predict presidential elections
• Correct from 1920 to 1932

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History of Public Opinion Research

• Public opinion polling as we know it did not
  begin to develop until the 1930s.
• Spurred on by Lippmans Public Opinion (1922)
• Earlier straw polls used
• Unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion
  on a variety of issues and policies
• Literary Digest
• George Gallup
• Correctly predicted the results of the 1936
  presidential contest
• Techniques became more sophisticated in the
  1940s.
• Dewey incorrectly predicted as winner

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Recent Efforts to Measure Public Opinion

• Gallup Organization
• National Election Study
• Internet
• Harris Interactive

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How Public Opinion is Measured

• Traditional public opinion polls
• Determine the content phrasing the questions
• Selecting the sample
• Random sampling a method of poll selection that
  gives each person the same chance of being
  selected
• Stratified sampling A variation of random
  sampling census data are used to divide the
  country into four sampling regions. Sets of
  counties and standard metropolitan statistical
  areas are then randomly selected in proportion to
  the total national population
• Contacting respondents

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Political Polls

• Push Polls
• Polls taken for the purpose of providing
  information on an opponent that would lead
  respondents to vote against that candidate
• Tracking Polls
• Continuous surveys that enable a campaign to
  chart its daily rise or fall in support
• Exit Polls
• Polls conducted at selected polling places on
  Election Day

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Shortcomings of Polling

• Inaccurate results can be dangerous.
• Voter News Service made errors during the
  presidential election of 2000 estimating Florida
• Failed to estimate the number of voters
  accurately
• Used an inaccurate exit poll model
• Incorrectly estimated the number of African
  American and Cuban voters
• Results lead to an early calling of the election
• VNS disbanded in 2003
• Major networks and Associated Press joined
  together to form a new polling consortium, the
  National Election Pool

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Shortcomings of Polling

• Sampling Error
• Sampling error or margin of error
• A measure of the accuracy of a public opinion
  poll
• Limited Respondent Options
• Lack of Information
• Difficulty Measuring Intensity

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Why We Form and Express Political Opinions

• Personal Benefits
• Political Knowledge
• Cues from Leaders or Opinion
  Makers
• Political Ideology

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Personal Benefits

• Most Americans more I centered
• Attitudes on moral issues are often based on
  underlying values.
• If faced with policies that do not
• Affect us personally
• Are not moral in nature
• Then we have difficulty forming an opinion.
• Foreign policy is such an example.

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Political Knowledge

• Political knowledge and political participation
  have a reciprocal relationship.
• Level of knowledge about history and politics low
• Hurts Americans understanding of current
  political events
• Geographically illiterate
• Gender differences

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Cues from Leaders

• Low levels of knowledge can lead to rapid opinion
  shifts on issues.
• Political leaders may move these shifts.
• President is in an important position to mold
  public opinion
• But who is truly leading-- the public or the
  president?

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Political Ideology

• An individuals coherent set of values and
  beliefs about the purpose and scope of government
• Can prompt citizens to for a certain set of
  policy programs and influence view of the role of
  government in the policy process
• 35 say they are moderate, 30 say they are
  conservative, and 29 say they are liberal.

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The Effects of Public Opinion and Polling on
Government and Politics

• Politicians and government spend millions each
  year to take the pulse of the public.
• They rely on polls but we do not know to what
  degree.
• Ginsberg critical of the passive voice of public
  opinion
• George Gallups response One might as well
  insist that a thermometer makes the weather.