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Chapter 9: Public Opinion and Political Socialization (Public Opinion…
Chapter 9: Public Opinion and Political Socialization
Public Opinion
The sum of individual attitudes or beliefs about an issue or question.
Direction
The idea of public opinion being either positive or negative (favorable or unfavorable) on an issue.
Stability
The likelihood of changes in the direction of public opinion.
Intensity
How strongly people hold the beliefs or attitudes that comprise public opinion.
Salience
The prominence or visibility of an issue or question and how important the issue is to the public.
Competence of Public Opinion
Delegate Model of Representative Democracy
The idea that the job of elected leaders is to make decisions solely based on the views of the majority of the people.
Trustee System of Democracy
The idea that the job of elected leaders is to make decisions based on their own expertise and judgment, and not just make decisions based on the wishes and preferences of constituents.
Push Poll
A type of public opinion poll that intentionally uses leading or biased questions in order to manipulate the responses.
Elite Opinion and Issue Publics
Elite Opinion
The attitudes or beliefs of those people with influential positions within society.
Issue Public
A section of the public with a strong interest in a particular issue.
Different Polls
Random Sample
A method of selecting a sample (subset of the population) in which every person in the target population has an equal chance of being selected.
Biased Sample
A group of poll respondents that does not accurately represent the target population and provides inaccurate estimates of the true opinions and attitudes of the target population.
Straw Polls
Unscientific polls based on nonrandom samples.
Instrumentation
The process of designing survey questionnaires.
Margin of Error
The amount that sample responses are likely to differ from those of the population within very tight boundaries that are known as the confidence level.
Confidence Level
The chance, measured in percent, that the results of a survey will fall within the boundaries set by the margin of error.
Political Culture
A set of shared beliefs that includes broad agreement about basic political values, agreement about the legitimacy of political institutions, and general acceptance of the process government uses to make policy.
Ideology
A consistent set of values, attitudes, and beliefs about the appropriate role of government in society.
Political Socialization
The process through which a younger generation learns political values from previous generations.
Peers
Reference Groups
Groups that influence the political attitudes of non-group members.
Political Participation
The translation of personal preference into a voluntary action designed to influence public policy.