Understanding Public Opinion

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to public opinion as discussed in the lecture.

Public Opinion

The collective attitudes and beliefs of individuals on certain issues in society.

Democratic Theory

A framework that holds that the outcomes of governance should reflect the views and opinions of the public.

Survey Methodology

Techniques used to gather data from a sample of individuals to understand public opinion.

Sampling Bias

A distortion in the sample that leads to an unrepresentative subset of the population being surveyed.

Response Bias

A tendency of respondents to answer questions inaccurately based on social pressures or the wording of questions.

High Demanders

Individuals who are more likely to participate in surveys and whose opinions are often over-represented.

Central Limit Theorem

A statistical theory stating that the distribution of sample means approaches a normal distribution as the sample size increases.

Public Inclusion

The consideration of which groups or individuals are represented in the understanding of public opinion.

Visual Representation in Surveys

The use of information gathered from surveys to create visual narratives that depict public opinion.

Leading Question

A question that prompts or encourages the desired answer, potentially skewing the responses.

Social Desirability Bias

The tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others.

Double Barrel Question

A question that asks about two different issues within a single item, leading to confusion in responses.