Public Opinion and Polling

GOVT 2305

In the previous sections we looked at the development of the freedom of speech and manner in which that

freedom is interpreted by the courts.

Special attention was paid to the reasons why the courts may allow for limitations of the freedom of speech

and why.

It was pointed out that the freedom of speech allowed people to hold opinions independent of those of the governing

regime, and articulate them.

This allows for the formation of public opinion, which underlies – in some way –

what democratic governments do.

Which leads to the development of public opinion and its role as an external force upon government

and public policy.

Which is as it should be in a democracy – or at least that’s the

theory.

In this section we look more deeply into the concept of public

opinion and hit a few topics associated with it.

First, we will begin by looking at the role public opinion is argued to

play in a democracy.

And augment this with a look at how the constitution structures that relationship. Some of this

ground has been covered in previous sections.

Second we will look at the origins of public opinion, which will

include a look at the agents of socialization. These are the groups

and institutions – including families, peers, schools and the media – which are the principle

mechanisms that determine what people think and believe.

Third, we will cover how public opinion is measured.

This will take us to public opinion polling, which attempt to use scientifically valid means to

determine what a large group of individuals think about a specific

thing.

And fourth, we will analyze the content of public opinion.

What do Americans tend to think about certain things? Where is

there agreement and disagreement?

Here are Blog Tags taking you to the various posts I’ve complied over the years related to

public opinion:

Frank LuntzFramingIdeology

Irrational PublicIs the American Public Rational?

Political IgnorancePolitical Knowledge

PollsPublic Opinion

Let’s begin by defining public opinion.

Here are two definitions of public opinion:

1: the predominant attitude of a community : the collective will of the people <a fluctuation in

public opinion may redirect national policy>

2: a summation of public expression regarding a specific issue or event <public opinion on balancing the budget falls into two main

categories.

And another:

Public Opinion: the aggregate opinions or values held by a group of people, usually as determined

by a public opinion poll.

And still another: “those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to

heed.“ – V.O. Key.

We can think of public opinion in a couple ways.

1 - The latent opinion that seems to exist in a group of people.

2 – The attitudes that can be scientifically measured from a representative sample

drawn from a population of interest.

The former refers to a feeling you might get from being in a group of people while the latter refers to a more precise objective measure.

Here are some other related terms. A person’s opinions are

argued to be composed of some combination of the following:

valuesattitudes

beliefs

Value: An assumption which is the basis for ethical action.

Attitude: an expression of favor is disfavor towards a person, place,

thing, or event.

Belief: A psychological state in which a person holds a conjecture

of premise to be true.

Public opinion is argued to be a measure of what people believe at a moment in time when asked to

apply the previous concepts to current events.

First topic

What role should public opinion play in a democracy?

That’s a subject we have investigated previously in separate sections of the class. In a sense the answer depends on what types of democracy

one refers to. In a direct democracy public opinion is tied directly to public policy. In a

representative democracy – a republic – the impact of public opinion is modified.

If you recall from early sections, the constitutional system is designed to limit

the direct influence the general population can have on government.

The framers of the Constitution had low opinions of the ability of the general population to govern themselves.

Remember that the founders had a mixed view of the opinion of the general population. While they accepted that the nations must rest on the people’s authority,

they were suspicious of the quality of public opinion. This is a theme

we started this class with.

Recall this quote from Alexander Hamilton presented in the first set

of power points in this class:

“For my part, I am not much attached to the majesty of the multitude, and therefore waive all pretensions (founded on such

conduct), to their countenance. I consider them in general as very ill qualified to judge for themselves what government will best suit their peculiar situations; nor is this to be wondered at. The science of government is not easily understood. Cato will

admit, I presume, that men of good education and deep reflection, only, are judges of the form of a government;

whether it is constituted on such principles as will restrain arbitrary power, on the one hand, and equal to the exclusion of corruption and the destruction of licentiousness on the other”

- (Caesar #2) Alexander Hamilton

John Adams was dismissive of public opinion also:

“The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties

is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all;

they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.”

And recall Madison’s take on public opinion in Federalist #10:

“The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under

which popular governments have everywhere perished”

When we discussed the overall design of the Constitution, we pointed out that it’s

intended to both connect the general population to the government, but limits

its ability to immediately impact the operations of the government.

It does this partly by designing each governing institution so that it has a

unique connection to the electorate.

This reflects a suspicion the founders had about public opinion

in a democracy.

It allows for the tyranny of the majority.

When we discussed the Bill of Rights we mentioned that one of

the purposes of the document was to place limits on what laws

Congress could pass, which is also a way of limiting what influence

public opinion can have on public policy.

The Bill of Rights is ultimately enforced by the Supreme Court’s ability to declare laws that violate it null and void – judicial review.

Remember that the Supreme Court is not accountable to the

electorate. It can make decisions that run counter to public opinion.

This includes the ability of groups to protest at military funerals

.

“We have to discharge our responsibility to enforce the rights in favor of minorities,

whatever the majority reaction may be.”

– Supreme Court Justice

William Brennan.

We also discussed John Stuart Mill’s take on tyranny of the

majority:

“ . . . there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency

of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of

conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of

any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the

model of its own.”

- John Stuart Mill.

A full discussion of public affairs cannot happen if the majority is

able to limit what the minority can say.

The point is that public opinion can be dangerous in a democracy,

nevertheless, it is considered to be the driving force behind the

establishment of public policy.

Or if it does not drive the formation of public policy, it is

necessary in order to legitimize it.

This important to bear in mind.

If someone complains that the government is not doing something the general

population wants it to do, one response is that government is not designed to

respond to quick shifts in public opinion. It is designed however for slow steady shifts

in opinion to impact policy.

This is one of the consequences of the separated powers.

Example:

Despite substantive majorities for laws limiting access to certain guns

following the December 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings, the bills containing these

limits were defeated. Part of the reason was that support spiked following the shootings, but decreased over time. The bicameral legislative system slows the bill making process down and

makes it less likely to respond to sudden shifts in opinion.

Key point:

Attitudes about gun control tend to fluctuate, often in response to events like

school shootings. Some institutions are designed to be responsive to those shifts, but some are designed to be resistant to them. If the shift in opinion is temporary,

then it is unlikely to impact policy. A bill on the issue is not likely to be passed into law.

This doesn’t work all the time.

Certain events – like 9/11 – are responded to quickly by Congress,

but these are the exception not the rule.

Click here for Thomas’ links to legislation related to the 9/11 attacks

.

Some attitudes witness slow, gradual, steady change in one direction. These are more likely to lead to the passage of legislation responding to these shifts in attitudes. The reason is that over time those shifts

affect the composition of each of the separated powers, and they become more unified – in agreement

– on those issues.

The classic example of this is attitudes about race. Attitudes of white Americans towards African Americans has shifted dramatically over the past 70 years. This helps explain why segregation laws have not only

been overturned, but are unlikely to return.

This suggests that public opinion does have an impact on public

policy – so democracy works – but it is a slow process that is meant to

ensure that radical, temporary shifts in public opinion do not

impact public policy. Only steady substantive changes do.

What about the impact of money in politics?

A current – serious – concern is whether the recent increase in the amount of

money in politics minimizes the democratic nature of governance.

Elected representatives who rely on campaign funds from wealthy individuals

may focus on the interests of their donors, not their constituents.

We tend to believe that democracy is supposed to reflect the will of

the people.

We have Abraham Lincoln to credit for this. Here’s a key quote form

the Gettysburg Address:

Government of the people, by the people, for the

people, shall not perish from the

Earth.

This suggests that government should reflect the will of the people, but Lincoln was in many ways reorienting the nature

of governance, and making it more democratic.

The original governing system – at least nationally – restricted participation to the

wealthy. Again, this is subject matter we’ve covered before.

There’s nothing new to the idea that the wealthy have greater access to people in power – and can in fact place people in

positions of power due to their ability to influence the political process.

The opinions of the wealthy have tended to weight more than the opinions of the

average person.

But as out expectations of democracy have changed, and we

expect overall public opinion to have a greater impact.

This continues to be a subject of political science.

Click here for an interview with authors of a recent paper that

claim that members of Congress are more likely to visit with donors

than constituents.

How about the poor? If their opinion shifts on issues, does it impact policy? Not necessarily.

We discuss this further elsewhere.

Second Topic

The Origins of Public Opinion

Agents of Socialization

Like the previous slide suggests, this section looks at the source of public

opinion.

Much of this will focus on the role that the “agents of socialization” have on the

opinions we have. The primary “agents” are argued to be the family, schools, peer

groups and the media – though others exist as well.

In Federalist #10 Madison offered his take on the source of public

opinion in order to determine why different opinions formed.

If you recall, he pointed to two things: poor reasoning and self

interest.

Ignorance

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different

opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have

a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will

attach themselves.

Self Interest

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different

leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose

fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed

them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to

co-operate for their common good.

So this is a topic that has interested people for some time.

And it continue to the subject of research.

This assumes of course that opinions are not innate, that they are shaped by the experiences we are exposed to over the

course of our lives.

Some current researchers are beginning to challenge this, and argue that our opinions

are based on our genetic structure. Our ideological positions may be rooted in our

DNA.

Click here for an article in Nature on that subject:

Biology and ideology: The anatomy of politics

“An increasing number of studies suggest that biology can exert a significant influence on political beliefs and

behaviours. Biological factors including genes, hormone levels and neurotransmitter systems may partly shape people's attitudes on political issues such as welfare,

immigration, same-sex marriage and war. And shrewd politicians might be able to take advantage of those

biological levers through clever advertisements aimed at voters' primal emotions.

Many of the studies linking biology to politics remain controversial and un replicated. But the overall body of evidence is growing and might alter how people think

about their own and others' political attitudes.”

No need to did too deeply into this area, other than to acknowledge that it’s an increasingly important

area of study.

We’ll stick primarily to the agents of socialization.

The Family

Given the amount of exposure people have to their families, plus

the fact that this exposure happens at a young age, its little

surprise that families are assumed to have – perhaps – the biggest

impact on a child’s political socialization.

Families are assumed to influence three things in children.

First, a basic set of values which can include a simple understanding of what’s right and wrong.

Second, a sense of what issues are most important, for example gun rights or the right to join a labor union. And third, an attachment to a

political party or candidate.

All this assumes that the family is politically active.

A family that is involved in politics gives their kids the idea that politics is not only important to be involved in,

but that they can use the political process for their own benefit. They can also learn the ways to do so.

But kids can also learn the opposite. Politics is something to be avoided. Parents who do not

participate tend to have kids who do not participate.

This leads to the obvious problem.

One reason why parents might not have that big an influence however is that as kids grow, they can rebel

and adopt opinions that run counter to their parents.

One reason this can happen is due to the influence of another agent

of socialization.

Peer Groups

A peer group can be defined as any group of individuals that someone chooses to

engage with or identify with.

These groups can be any number of things and include a variety of different people.

This can include friends, co-workers, fellow church members, neighbors, among many

others.

Peer groups have been increasingly argued to be dominant

determinants of attitudes among the young, and even beyond.

This is an idea made in an influential book written in 1998:

The Nurture Assumption.

In the book the author – after witnessing the behavior of her own children -

challenged the idea that parents have a dominant influence on children. Peer

group influence may be more important.

Most of what she witnessed with her own children were their attempts to assimilate

with friends of their own age.

Peer group effects are measured in a variety of ways. One way it is done is to look at

neighborhood effects. Voting behavior and public opinion can sometimes be shaped by

general trends in one’s neighborhood.

There is evidence that a moving to a neighborhood can have an impact on one’s political opinions. People might rethink long

held beliefs is suddenly put in an environment where they are surrounded by people with

other beliefs.

Peer group influence work through membership in different social organizations, notably

churches. Here attitudes beliefs and values are developed and reinforced.

Churches can also provide other connections that can enable political participation. People that are involved in churches also tend to be

involved in other organizations as well. Church members also tend to be highly active

politically.

One reason why peer group influence may be less that family influence is that connections with peer groups can be short-lived.

This is not true for one specific type of peer group however.

Political Generations

A “political generation” is a group of individuals born around the same time that were exposed to similar events and may then have opinions that are shaped

more by these common events – that are reinforced by one’s peers – than the messages one gets from one’s

parents.

The United States has had more than a dozen unique generations since its founding – including the founding generation. Each has its own set of experiences which conditioned their outlook. These attitudes tend to die

off with them.

Examples of political generations currently active in politics:

Silent Generation (born 1929-45)Baby Boomers (born 1946-64)Generation X (born 1965-80)The Millenials (born 1981-93)

People born in each of those times witnessed and lived through different events – the Great

Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy Assassination, the fall of Communism, 9/11, the crash of

2008 – and each event has its own unique impact on their attitudes

and political identity.

The dispositions of each vary.

Click here for a Pew Research Center

look at political generations – as well as a related NPR story here.

Notice how attitudes about government vary depending upon

age.

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-3/

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-8/

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-10/

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-6/

The opinions about certain policies and about the role of government can vary

depending upon which generation a group belongs to.

Often changes in public opinion is not due to people changing their minds, but

because a generation with one point of view grows old and dies and is replaced with a generation that holds a different

point of view.

Here’s a graph showing age differences in attitudes about

government.

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-2/

Changes in attitudes about racial relationships and the role of women have been driven by

changes in political generations more than anything else.

Here’s a graph from the Gallup Poll that shows changes in attitudes about inter racial marriage

.

By the way, note the change in wording mentioned in the previous

graph – those matter.

More on that soon.

A current case in point is attitudes about same-sex relationships.

Opposition to gay marriage comes mostly from older generations, and

is likely to die with them.

http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/03/3-20-13-1.png

Understanding this dynamic gives us insight into what types of

changes in policy are likely to be supported in the future.

Where changes are likely to happen and where it is not.

Notice that the situation with attitudes about whether abortion

should be legal under any circumstances is more complex.

Age does not seem to explain much

.

For grins, here’s a story about how teenagers are impacted by selfies posted by other teenagers

on social media.

A picture of other teenagers smoking and drinking can influence

others to do the same.

Millennials tend to avoid institutions.

Race

As with party identification described previously, race has

evolved as a leading factor causing individuals to adopt and reinforce

opinions about policy issues. It also impacts how people interpret

current events.

Race has been a traditional dividing line in American politics,

so this should be no surprise.

There are clear differences between whites and blacks in

attitudes about a number of public issues.

Here are two:

The Response to Hurricane Katrina

The Travon Martin Shooting

Racial differences also exist regarding the Affordable Care Act.

If this isn’t enough, click here for a snapshot view of attitudes of the

African American community, and here for a study about lingering

prejudice against the African Americans.

Its worth noting that only recently have surveys began including questions about

the Hispanic and Asian population.

The realities of public opinion surveys makes it difficult for minority populations to be surveyed accurately – we will touch

on this point below.

Until recently, the Latino population was simply added to

the “white” category. Only recently has that not been the case,

meaning there’s not much history in measuring Latino opinion.

Click here for a study analyzing differences within the community

.

Some demographic data.

Which is preferable “Hispanic” or “Latino?”

Gender

As with race, gender differences – and unequal treatment – have a long history n American politics.

Women have emerged as a unique voice in American politics.

There is a steady difference in opinions on major social issues

between men an women.

This is referred to as the Gender Gap.

Generally the term refers to the difference in voting patterns between men and women.

Women tend to vote 10 percentage points more for Democrats than Republican.

Here’s data from Nate Silver

They also tend to be more liberal – by 10 to 25 percentage points – in

a variety of issues, including:

the role of governmentaffirmative action

pay equityheath care

military intervention

Click here for links to research on the gender gap.

From the Hill: Gallup: 2012 election had the largest gender gap in recorded history

Political Parties

Another institution that can be considered a peer group is a

political party. When one identifies with a party, one also identifies with a group that supports and

confirms the viewpoints they hold.

We will considered this already in a previous section.

But studies have pointed out something odd.

Identification with a political party can condition the opinions that people

hold to the point that experimenters have led party identifiers to adopt

positions contrary to a party’s normal platform by simply telling subjects that

the opposite is true.

Democrats have been persuaded to support cuts to welfare

programs while Republican have been persuaded to support

expansions of it, if the subject is told that these are the new

positions taken by the party.

Peer group influence seems to be able to lead people to do some

problematic things.

Schools

If you remember from the early sections in this class, schools were

argued to play a central role in preparing the general population

to be ready for the responsibilities of self-government.

This was held true on both the national and state level.

Conversely, when discussing the expansion of participation and equal protection it was

pointed out that limiting access to education was considered necessary to

keeping certain populations in a secondary status.

The seminal civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was based on access to a decent elementary

school.

This explains why there was an effort to educate the public.

Educational institutions are often used to promote certain values, which leads to

common acceptance of certain beliefs and a greater tendency to support the republic.

You have permission to be cynical.

Think about it: Why do you

have to take this class?

Education or Indoctrination?

For this reason, and since students spend so much time in school, it is held that schools are also principal

agents of socialization.

It does so not only because of the information they provide, but also due to the habits they instill. The later part

is called the hidden curriculum.

From Pearson: Alongside the formal curriculum within educational

establishments exists a hidden curriculum.

This refers to values, attitudes and principles which are implicitly conveyed to students. The hidden curriculum is argued to encourage social control first within the

school itself and, subsequently, within society as a whole.

Some of this can involve performing quasi-governing functions that

students will later engage in when they become adults.

Or just doing what is necessary to engage in civil society – like not biting your classmates and learning how to

stand in line.

The impact of schools varies depending on the level.

Kids learn basic information about the nation – including symbols, events and people – in

elementary school. This includes becoming familiar with the Pledge of Allegiance and the

Star Spangled Banner. The precise content might vary depending on the school. Some

figures like Robert E. Lee, Cesar Chavez, and Malcolm X might be presented some places and

not others.

In secondary school the curriculum can become more detailed and critical thinking associated with the nature of governance

is more common.

Also students begin to play act aspects of the democratic process. Student council elections allow students opportunities to

become accustomed to living in a democratic system.

And in each of these levels students read textbooks and are

exposed to curricula that are authorized by the state and local governments. So what they are

taught is based on what the general society wants them to

learn.

The older the child gets, the more the formal curriculum becomes an issue and the more the school can

be a battle ground over what aspects of American history and governance ought to be covered

and how.

Texas is often a battleground over these conflicts. In recent decades conservative groups

have challenged what they think has been a liberal approach to teaching government and

history in the state. Every ten years the Texas Board of Education revisits the K-12

curriculum which provides opportunities to revisit how different subjects are taught.

Click here for a discussion of the most recent battle in 2010

.

“After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a

social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics

textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government

and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.”

What unique influence does college have?

In each of the levels in K-12, students stay connected with their

families so anything they are exposed to at school is balanced

out by the home.

Things change when students leave to go to college.

As a result, its held that college has the greatest impact on political

socialization because students are not only exposed to more alternate ideas, they are less likely to have those ideas

balanced by their families.

The classic study of this effect was the Bennington College Study.

Bennington College provided an opportunity to test the impact of exposure to viewpoints contrary to one’s parents. It

was an expensive college where conservative parents could send their

daughters. But the faculty was very liberal. This allowed researchers the opportunity to test whether the students positions on

issues changed and whether those changes were stable.

In both cases they found that they did.

But the explanation also dipped into the influence of peer groups.

“Did these changes in political attitudes become a part of an enduring ideological identity? In general, the

answer is yes. Two follow-up studies of the Bennington women 25 and 50 years later found they had remained liberal. For example, in the 1984 presidential election,

73 percent of Bennington alumnae preferred the Democratic candidate Walter Mondale over the

Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, compared with fewer than 26 percent of women of the same age and

educational level. Moreover, about 60 percent of Bennington alumnae were politically active, most (66

percent) within the Democratic party.”

“The political attitudes of Bennington women remained stable, in part, because they selected new reference groups after college--friends and

husbands--who supported the attitudes they developed in college. Those who married more

conservative men were more likely to be politically conservative in 1960. As Newcomb noted, we often select our reference groups

because they share our attitudes, and then our reference groups, in turn, help to develop and

to sustain our attitudes.”

College might have a unique impact on personal opinions

because they introduce people to new peer groups – or reference

groups as the study terms them.

The Media

The impact of the media is highly controversial, and high unclear.

It is commonly assumed that the media is seldom objective – that it tends to

promote ideologically tinged viewpoints. This is called media bias. Some even argue

that it should and there is no sense in pretending that it should be objective.

But establishing that an ideologically biased media actually has an impact on public opinion

is difficult to prove. This is similar to the problem of proving that peer groups have an

impact.

Do people select media outlets – and peer groups – because they have a tendency to adopt

the opinions and ideological viewpoints of common to them?

We will explore the media in a later section, but for now its important to understand the consequence of

the vast range of sources – from print to cable to online – of news and opinion available.

Researchers that study how people use the media have discovered that people have a strong tendency to listen

to news sources that confirm the values and opinions they already hold. We don’t like to be confronted with information that challenges out pre-held world view.

This is called confirmation bias.

This supports the argument that the American public does not take

rational positions on issues.

We do not objectively study events and policies. We do not reach

opinions by analyzing evidence, we work backward from out opinions

and find evidence to support them.

Some suggest that this is one of the sources of ideological

polarization in society.

A media environment with a wide range of choices of news that each provide a narrow biased viewpoint

reinforces this polarization.

But is this something driven by the media? Or are media outlets –

which are businesses driven by the need to collect revenue –

supplying a demand?

Which is the cart and which is the horse?

If the impact of media bias has been difficult to determine, the

media has been successful in influencing public opinion in one

key area:

Agenda Setting.

If you remember from a previous section on stages in the public policy process, you

remember that it all starts with agenda setting.

People have to be made aware of an issue before it can be considered by a governing

entity and turned – potentially – into public policy.

This is often argued to be the biggest impact the media can have

on politics and government.

A 1968 study showed a correlation between what people thought

were the major issues of the day and what the television networks

covered.

LBJ famously decided to start pushing civil rights legislation when

he noticed the three major networks were leading their news programs with video of civil rights marchers being beaten by police.

Here’s a telling quote:

The media does not tell you what to think, but it can tell you what to

think about.

But the nature of the coverage can be influenced.

Images and word choices can impact how people process and evaluate information. For example, when

covering a story involving poverty, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage does the story focus on social factors that make it difficult for some people to do well in the current economy or do they focus on

personal behaviors instead?

Most public and private organization understand the

impact of the media and have strategies designed to impact how

people process information.

This is commonly referred to as spin control.

More precisely this is referred to a framing and priming.

We’ll cover these more when we discuss the media in a separate

section.

A final point on agents of socialization:

Shaping Public Opinion

These effects come from entities that are not necessarily political, but can have indirect effects on political attitudes.

Some entities deliberately look to impact political attitudes in order to attempt to shape political opinions, so lets turn to

them. The fact that governments attempt to do so is not new.

James Madison on government’s attempts to influence public opinion

:

“Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one. As there are cases where the public

opinion must be obeyed by the government; so there are cases, where not being fixed, it may be

influenced by the government.”

This is an important point. In a democracy government is

supposed to follow public opinion, but it also tries to influence the

nature of public opinion. Increasingly sophisticated media

technology has made this an ongoing effort.

Example: The Permanent Campaign:

“governing with public approval requires a continuing political

campaign”

Elected officials never stop campaigning. Once they win office,

the campaign shifts to ensuring support for their initiatives.

The rise of these efforts increased with the rise of the

public relations industry.

Read up here on Edward Bernays: “the father of public relations”

In a democracy, there must be a tight relationship between public

opinion and public policy.

But the relationship is complex.

While public opinion influences government, governments try to

influence public opinion.

While the people are to be sovereign in the American system,

governments, and political organizations, actively engage in

efforts to influence public opinion.

The White House and Congress have communications and press

offices that attempt to mold opinions about their proposals.

A final point for this section

The formation of public opinion

How do people process information and form it into

opinions?

Years of accumulated public opinion research has allowed

research into this question – as has experimental studies.

Much of this rests where political science and psychology overlaps.

A common question asked is whether we use incoming

information to develop opinions or to we evaluate incoming

information based on whether it confirms pre-existing beliefs?

Research suggests that the later is more important than the former.

People tend to not want to spend too much time making up their

minds about things.

They (we) like to use short-cuts to figure out what to make of events and people. The fancy terms for

this process is heuristics. From the ever trusty Wikipedia:

These and other factors also serve as heuristic devices that make it

easier for people to make decisions about political matters.

A variety of factors serve this function.

Heuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery that

give a solution which is not guaranteed to be optimal. Where the exhaustive search is

impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method

include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment,

stereotyping, or common sense.

A problematic type of heuristic is stereotyping. This can be defined as:

“ . . . standardized and simplified conceptions of groups, based on some prior assumptions. Generally speaking, these ‘stereotypes’ are not based on

objective truth, but rather subjective and often unverifiable content-matter.”

An even fancier way to describe this process involves

schema theory.

Over the course of our lives we’ve developed ideas about how the

world works. We seldom feel the need to rethink the conclusions we

have reached.

We use these ideas to make quick decisions about matters that

present themselves to us.

Researchers call these schemas.

“Schemata are an effective tool for understanding the world. Through the use of schemata, most everyday situations do not

require effortful processing— automatic processing is all that is required.

People can quickly organize new perceptions into schemata and act effectively without effort.

For example, most people have a stairway schema and can apply it to climb staircases

they've never seen before.”

They make living in a world that forces us to make decisions all the

time, to make them efficiently.

Think about these as filters that help us evaluate and process

information.

Ideology acts as such a filter.

Remember that ideology has previously been defined as a set of

issue positions based on an underlying value.

Ideological identification also helps people determine what to believe

and what not to believe.

Conservatives tend to believe only conservatives and liberal only liberals.

The same information can be discounted if comes from someone the recipient does not like. The people who convey these

messages are sometimes called opinion leaders. They send cues to people

who identify with them.

Third Topic

How do we know what the content of public opinion?

By using polls.

How is this done and what are the problems associated with it?

We can think of public opinion in at least two ways. First, as a

general “sense” that exists among a group of people. Second, as

numbers that attempt to encapsulate that sense in some

specific way.

A public opinion poll attempts to makes that conversion. A

representative sample is drawn from a group of interest and is

asked questions. Usually, predetermined choices are

presented to the participants in a poll.

Here’s a definition:

A public opinion poll is a systematic way to estimate the attitudes and opinions of a large

group of peopleby drawing a representative

sample of that group and asking them questions.

The answers to these questions can tell us the population’s

attitudes about candidates for office, public policy positions, ideological beliefs, purchasing decisions or anything else of

interest.

Polling has become ubiquitous over the past several decades. Almost all aspects of politics use polling to determine not only what public thinks about certain issues,

but how their opinion might be manipulated.

Governing entities, political parties, and interest groups actively use polling to

determine how best to frame their messages.

Here’s a quick look at how polls work.

Remember that a poll attempts to do something that seems impossible. Use a small handful of people to determine the opinions of a much larger group. In the

case of the US, a properly selected group of 1000 people can be used to estimate the opinions of the entire nation of 300 million within a small margin of error.

This can be done by using random sampling.

This is a process used to draw a sample from the population the researcher wishes to study. The theory is that anyone in that

population has the same chance to be drawn into the sample. The only question is how is this best done. The process has changed over time as the means people

use to communicate change.

The person who has been credited with developing this process – at least the theory

underlying it – is George Gallup.

The Gallup Poll

The oldest of the polling organizations. Founded by George

Gallup who helped develop the random sampling process.

Other polling organizations exist as well:

Major polling organizations include: ABC NewsAmerican National Election Studies

Associated PressCBS News

CNNGallup

General Social Survey at NORCWall Street Journal/NBC News

Washington PostFox

Marist Pew Research Center

Siena CollegeQuinnipiac University

A good resource for information from various polls: Pollster

Gallup became noteworthy due to a stunt he pulled to demonstrate

the accuracy of his methods during the 1936 presidential election.

It involved a challenge to the Literary Digest Poll which had done a good job predicting the results of the previous presidential elections.

Simply put, the Literary Digest used a methodology that over sampled voters who were likely to vote for Alf

Landon. They drew names from automobile registration lists and telephone directories. These were things wealthy individuals were more likely to possess

during the Great Depression. The Literary Digest predicted Landon would defeat Franklin Roosevelt,

which turned out not to be true. This was because their sample over represented Republican voters.

Gallup predicted both that Roosevelt would win and that the Literary Digest would predict he would lose.

Click here for how Gallup conducts polls.

Other polls make adjustments to the process, but most methods follow the

basic outline of Gallup’s. Small changes might be made to ensure that a sample does in fact represent the population a

pollster wishes to measure.

Generally polls are good at determining public opinion within a

margin of error.

Sometimes polls can be criticized for not predicting results closer.

Whenever elections are within the margin of error – plus or minus 3% - they cannot predict accurately who

the winner will be.

Forecasting elections is a different game than measuring public

opinion.

Measuring public opinion is a lucrative business, so it’s important

that pollsters get results right.

Pollsters tend to police themselves well and are on the look-out for

factors that can bias results.

Click here for the Gallup Poll’s accuracy record in presidential elections

.

538 details how the various polls did in predicting the results of the 2012 presidential election. Gallup

did the worst.

The variance in performance is due to the different techniques used to draw samples.

Until the rise of cell phones and the internet, pollsters could confidently use

landlines to draw samples. This is not longer the case, and it poses problems for

the reliability of polls.

Click here for a Pew Research Center report on the topic

.

One of the problems is that cell phone users are different than landline users –

they tend to be younger and more transient, and more likely to be members of a minority group. Over representation

of land line users leads to a biased sample.

This was the same problem in the Literary Digest Poll. People likely to vote

Republican were over represented in the poll. This lead to the wrong result.

There are a variety of ways that bias can enter into poll results.

Let’s have a quick look at them.

Here are examples:

Incorrectly Drawn SamplesTiming

Question Ordering / Framing EffectsQuestion Wording

Incorrectly Drawn Samples

We’ve discussed this problem already, so no need to dwell too heavily into it. But it’s important to keep this

issue in mind when hearing about poll result.

Has the pollster in fact drawn a sample representative of the population they wish to measure? This is a major problem with election forecasts because the goal there

is to determine who in fact is going to vote in the election. This is tough to do. Measuring those who will

not vote can lead to error.

Self Selection Bias

One of the major problems with a poll is when it allows people to select themselves

to be participants. This creates bias in favor of whichever side of the issue

contains the most passionate opinion holders. Selection into a sample has to be

determined by a random process that prevents this bias.

Timing

Opinions can change over time. We’ve noted this before, but sometimes the change can be

driven due to recent events. If a poll is taken after an event that impacts – temporarily – public

opinion, the result is likely to be distorted.

Sometimes polls have shown shifts in opinions that seemed unusual until it was noted that an

outside event impacted the result.

Example: Suppose you were studying attitudes about civil liberties and wanted to find out what people thought about warrantless surveillance. Also suppose you planned to conduct a poll in mid September 2001. The results would have

been affected by the 9/11 attacks.

Framing Effects / Question Ordering

The concept of a framing effect builds from the idea that many issues people have

opinions about are complex. As a result we can be ambivalent about them.

We might have contradictory opinions about an issue because there are merits

and detriments to both sides if it.

Example: We tend like both privacy and security from criminal

activities.

But some of the measures used to fight, investigate and prevent

crime – including terrorist activities – involve activities that

compromise individual privacy.

Sometimes respondents to polls can be enticed to answer in contrary ways to a given question depending upon how an issue has been framed

– often this involves adjusting the frame of reference or the context that a person uses to

answer a question.

This is based on the idea that people formulate answers to questions based on recent factors

that have been called to mind.

If someone is asked a question about whether they approve or disapprove

of surveillance of cell phones, they are likely to answer differently depending upon whether they are thinking about the possibility of an imminent terrorist

attack or the possibility that government is attempting to gather information in order to control you .

Sometimes this frame of reference is based on recent event (see the discussion of timing

below) but sometimes the poll itself can create these frames of reference by bringing certain

items to a respondents attention by asking questions about them in the poll.

This suggests that polls – depending upon how they order questions – can create bias. In other words, they can influence how people are likely to answer key questions towards the end of the

poll.

Good polls avoid this by randomly ordering questions.

Acquiescence Bias

A related problem happens with the answer choices people are given. Pollsters noticed years ago that people have a greater tendency to say “yes” than “no” to questions. This leads to the obvious problem. It is addressed by alternating the answer options in order to compensate for

this tendency. If this is not done, the poll’s results will be inaccurate.

Question Wording

The impact of words has been long noted.

“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and

division of society.”

- John Adams

The simple point here is that words matter. Certain terms have – over

the course of time – acquired a positive or negative connotations.

This can impact the results of surveys presented to respondents

to a poll.

The most recent example is in polls that ask for opinions about the recent health care law.

Opinions about “Obamacare” are more negative than opinions about “The Affordable Care Act.” Each refers to the same thing, but the former has a more negative connotation. This means that poll results will vary depending on which

words the pollster chooses to use. Which biases the results of the survey.

Similar results have been found regarding questions about welfare.

When the word “welfare” is used in a poll about support for poverty programs,

opinions tend to be negative. But when the question asks about the programs

themselves – Head Start for example – opinions tend to be positive.

The framers of the Constitution were aware of the importance of proper word choice.

Earlier we mentioned the conflicts over what to call the person who heads the executive branch. Some argued that “president” was not dignified enough because all

that implied was that the person in that offices presides over the branch. But that was why some argued the term was useful. If the word “governor” was used, it would imply the person would be active. This might end up being the case of course, but not reason to

make that obvious.

This is an important observation because it helps us understand a

lot of what drives politics.

A great deal of study goes into determining what words to use in

crafting debates.

An old political scientist argued that the ability to determine the words used in

debates helped determine who would win the debate.

Some political consultants focus specifically on determining what

words should be used to promote or oppose policy proposals.

One example is Frank Luntz, who helped craft the terminology used

in the Contract with America.

He continues to advise Republicans on what words to use when

making arguments.

One of his suggestions was to start calling the “estate tax” the “death

tax.”

He also made suggestions about how to argue against the

Affordable Care Act:

The Language of Health Care 2009The Language of Health Care

The Language of Financial Reform

More recently Democratic strategists have learned how to craft words to their

advantage as well.

A recent vote on the debt ceiling went better than expected partially because

Democrats began using the term “default” to describe opposition to raising it.

Question: How easily can public opinion be manipulated? If it is

easy, then what does this say for the democratic nature of our

government?

Fourth – and final - Topic

What is the content of public opinion in the US?

This is a large topic to cover – and some things have been said about this in previous slides - but its wise

to make a few generalizations about what has been discovered about American public opinion

over history.

Here are just a few general observations

1 - There is a great deal of agreement – in the abstract – on the basic values

the nation is based upon.

But there can be disagreement about these values in how they are applied. Concrete examples of how values are in fact applied provides context that

can lead to disagreement.

Are certain ideas uniquely American?

The Unalienable Rights?

A bit of irony: Though the US is based on the idea of free speech,

the country itself is based on certain principles that tend to be

agreed to by most Americans.

Popular SovereigntyDemocracy

Self RuleIndividual Rights

Individual FreedomEqual Opportunity

These are articulated in the country’s fundamental documents and reinforced by schools, families

and peer groups.

Question: Are these sincerely held by individuals or is there pressure to conform to the tyranny of the

majority?

Was Mill right?

Remember that these values are also taught in school as well.

Concepts like “freedom” and “equality” are also abstract. It is relatively easy to find agreement

on abstract issues.

Disagreement tends to emerge when these concepts are made

more concrete.

One person’s understanding of “freedom” may not be the same as

another.

Example: We might agree that individual freedom is a

fundamental value, but disagree about what specific things people

should be free to do.

Should drug use and sexual activity be personal choices, or can they be

subject to societal rules?

People may have different definitions of “freedom” and

different places they draw the line between liberty and order.

Should we be free to discriminate based on race of gender?

And how rigidly does one define equality? How much inequality is

someone willing to accept?

Another example: Is there really equal opportunity in America?

Answers can differ based on personal experience

What about the right to privacy?

We might think that privacy is a good thing, but disagree over what

we should have privacy to do.

A consistent question asked over the course of American history is

whether the public is rational?

Can the general population provide a solid foundation for democracy? Can a democracy survive if based on an ignorant

public?

2 – The level of knowledge in the general population is pretty low, but this varies depending on how

politically involved a person happens to be.

This is a commonly asked question.

Does the public have factual knowledge of politics, government,

and current events?

Poll results suggest that they do not. Recent example: People tend

to overestimate the amount of crime that exists. What does that

mean for the types of crime policies the general public is likely to support? Will those policies be

appropriate given the actual nature of crime?

We discussed this in the introductory section, but there is plenty of evidence

backed up by polls that the general population does not have in depth

knowledge of public affairs. People tend to overestimate their level of knowledge

about governmental policies and personnel.

- Public Ignorance and Democracy

3 – While individuals might be unstable in their beliefs, there is

evidence that taken together – the opinion of the general population

is actually quite stable.

The argument here is that people who tend to change their minds on

different things tend to cancel themselves out.

The average of all these opinions leads to steadiness in opinions

themselves.

There is a signal in the noise.

This argues against the assumptions made about public opinion made by the framers of

the Constitution, but ironically one that does not argue against the

premise that people are instable in their beliefs.

The End