Chapter SevenPublic Opinion

What is Public Opinion?

• Public opinion: How people think or feel about particular things

• Not easy to measure• The opinions of active and knowledgeable people

carry more weight

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Pres. Bush Public Opinion

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• Gallup polling and President Bush

How Polling Works

• Pollsters need to pose reasonable questions that are worded fairly

• They have to ask people about things for which they have some basis to form an opinion

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• Women suffering???????

Random Sampling• Random sampling is necessary to insure a

reasonably accurate measure of how the entire population thinks or feels

• For populations over 500,000, pollsters need to make about 15,000 phone calls to reach 1,065 respondents, insuring the poll has a sampling error of only +/- 3%

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How Polling works

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• The Process

How Opinions Differ

• Opinion saliency: some people care more about certain issues than other people do

• Opinion stability: the steadiness or volatility of opinion on an issue

• Opinion-policy congruence: the level of correspondence between government action and majority sentiment on an issue

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Student Political Orientation by Gender

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College Students Views

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Political Socialization• Political socialization: the process by which personal

and other background traits influence one’s views about politics and government

– Family: Party identification of your family is absorbed, although children become more independent-thinking with time

– Religion: Families form and transmit political beliefs through their religious tradition

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Political Socialization The Family Odds are, you will become your folks (yeah, sorry about

that..) How does that happen…. 1) Your parents are your primary instructor of right

and wrong. As you grow and accept this role, it becomes natural to accept their political views as an extension of right/wrong.

2) Often your extended family will have the same political outlook as your folks, again it becomes natural to accept those views as “right”

Religion Religion and religious traditions teach a

way of viewing the world

Religion often has a pronounced impact on peoples view on social issues (gay marriage) Chart-p.158

Religion often has less of on impact on non-social issues (Iraq War)

Gender

Just as a gender impacts how a person views the world ( compare The Lifetime Network and Spike TV), gender can impact on a persons view of political issues

Men often poll high in concerns over: defense, gun rights and crime.

Women often poll high in concerns over: health care, gun control and anti-poverty programs

Chart p. 159

Cleavage

• No……that’s not the type of cleavage we’re talking about…c’mon now…

• In Political Science cleavage is a concept used in voting analysis and is the division of voters into voting blocs.– These voting blocks do not always fall neatly into

political party platform– Many times politicians or parties will target cleavage

issues to attract new voters– Issues that lead to/cause cleavage are called Wedge

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The Gender Gap• Women have slightly higher turnout rates than men• In 2009, about 42 percent of women, and 32 percent of

men, identified themselves as Democrats• This reflects attitudinal differences between men and

women about gun control, the economy, and social programs.

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Gender Gaps on Issue Importance (2006)

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Education

• From 1920s through 1960s, studies showed a college education had a liberalizing effect, possibly because of exposure to liberal elites

• In the past generation, increased schooling has not been associated with increased political activity.

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Social Class

• Social class: ill-defined in U.S., though recognized in specific cases (e.g., truck drivers and investment bankers)

• Social class is less important in the U.S. than in Europe; the extent of cleavage has declined in both places

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Social Class

While we pride ourselves as a nation that is “classless”, social scientists break society down by 2 generic categories:

Blue Collar – jobs that involve some type of physical activity. Can range from waitress to truck driver to carpenter. More likely to vote Democratic

White Collar – jobs that involve little physical effort, often a management type of position. More likely to vote Republican.

Regional Differences

• White southerners are more conservative than other regions regarding aid to minorities, legalizing marijuana, school busing, and rights of the accused

• Southerners are now significantly less Democratic than they were for most of the 20th century

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Race and Ethnicity

Certain racial/ethnic groups often trend toward one party or another.

African-Americans trend heavily democratic

Hispanic –Americans recently have been trending democratic

Asian-Americans tend to split between the 2 major parties

Political Ideology

• Political ideology: a more or less consistent set of beliefs about what policies government ought to pursue

• The great majority of Americans do not think ideologically

• People may have strong predispositions even if they do not satisfy the condition of being “ideological”

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Liberals and Conservatives• When asked, 40 percent of Americans self-identify as

moderate, 30 percent as conservative and 20 percent as liberal.

• However– Most Americans do not think about politics in an ideological

or very coherent manner;– Most Americans pick and choose their policy positions

without regard to ideology, and without feeling the need to be “consistent”

– Some people hide their true policy preferences under a perceived pressure to be “politically correct”

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Typology

Typology – a detailed examination of voter ideological views.

Breaks voters into 9 groups: Enterprisers, Social Conservatives, Pro-Government Conservatives, Upbeats, Disaffected, Conservative Democrats, Disadvantaged Democrats, Liberals & Bystanders.

Go to http://typology.people-press.org/typology see where you fit in

Ideology Typology: Nine Groups and Their Key Values

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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Political Elites

• Political elites: those who have a disproportionate amount of some valued resource

• Elites influence public opinion by framing issues and stating norms

• But elite influence only goes so far; they do not define problems that are rooted in personal experience

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