American Political Ideology, Beliefs, and Public Opinion

Vocabulary flashcards covering key public opinion polling concepts, sampling methods, political socialization, and political ideologies from the lecture notes.

Libertarianism

A political ideology advocating that government should not interfere with individuals' social, political, and economic rights; advocates a limited role of government, no guarantee of minimum wage, no governmental regulation of the economy (including environmental), no governmental interference in personal privacy, the legalization of prostitution and drugs, the elimination of major governmental bureaucracies (including the CIA, IRS, and FBI), and support for block grants for welfare to reduce citizen dependency.

Tracking polls

Polls that measure changes in public opinion over the course of days, weeks, or months by repeatedly asking respondents the same questions and measuring changes in their responses.

Push polls

A special type of poll that attempts to skew public opinion about a candidate and provides information to campaigns about candidate strengths and weaknesses.

Exit polls

Polls conducted at a polling place on Election Day to project the winner of an election before the polls close.

Straw Poll

A poll conducted in an unscientific manner that is used to predict election outcomes.

Random Sample

A scientific method of selection in which each member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample; an ideal sample according to the textbook consists of between $1{,}000$ and $1{,}500$ people.

Stratified Sample

A process of random sampling in which the national population is divided into fourths and certain areas within these regions are selected as representative of the national population.

Quota Sample

A method by which pollsters structure a sample so that it is representative of the characteristics of the target population.

Sampling error (Margin of Error)

A statistical calculation of the difference in results between a poll of a randomly drawn sample and a poll of the entire population.

Margin of error

A statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of a survey, where $4\%$ is considered within the margin of error.

Political socialization

The process by which individuals develop their political values and opinions.

Family

The primary agent that has historically had the highest impact on political socialization; when parents are politically active, discuss politics, and bring children to protests, their children tend to become politically active as well.

Political engagement

Citizens' actions that are intended to solve public problems through political means.

Civic engagement

Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concerns.

Gender Gap

The measurable difference in the way women and men vote for candidates and in the way they view political issues.

Cuban-American

The subgroup of the Latino population that tends to support the Republican Party more.

Silent generation vs. Millennials (Government Size Views)

A generational contrast in which the Silent generation favors small government, whereas millennials favor big government.

Dewey Defeats Truman

A famous historical example involving Harry S. Truman holding a mistakenly printed Chicago Daily Tribune newspaper headline, demonstrating that errors in political polling can lead to embarrassing mistakes by the media.