Public Opinion and Polling Class Unit #2 Study Sheet

A collection of vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts and definitions related to public opinion and polling.

Attitudes

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

Opinions

Aging Effects relate to how individuals change over time, whereas Age Cohort Effects refer to the influence of the historical period on each generation.

Beliefs

A shift in allegiance based more on opposition to a political party than on support for one’s own party.

Beliefs

The degree to which an individual's beliefs are aligned with their stated ideology.

Values

The consistency of an individual's attitudes over time.

Instrumental Vales

The phenomenon where partisan identification influences feelings toward members of opposing political parties.

End-State Values

The cognitive process where individuals' emotions and beliefs affect how they interpret information.

Direct Democracy

The theory that suggests that discomfort arises from holding conflicting beliefs or attitudes.

Representative Democracy

The awareness and understanding of political information and processes.

Democratic ELitism

Individual rights protected by law from governmental interference.

Democratic Pluralism

The willingness to extend basic democratic rights to people with whom one disagrees.

Participatory Democracy

The confidence citizens have in their government and its institutions.

Socialization Agents

Parental Transmission of Party Identification and Ideology

Aging Effects vs. Age Cohort Effects

Genetic Inheritance of Political Attitudes

Party Identification

Partisanship

Negative Partisanship

Definitions of Ideology

Ideology Constraint

Ideological Consistency

Party Leadership Model (Top Down Transmission of Ideology)

Party Platforms

Bottom-Up Models of Ideology

Attitudinal Stability v. Attitudinal Change

Phillip Converse and Attitudinal Stability and “Non-Attitudes”

What degree of the public is truly ideological?

Stability of Collective Public Opinion Compared to the Stability of Individual Level Public Opinion

Collective Public Opinion Swings in Domestic Policy v. Foreign Policy

Symbolic (Self-Identified) Ideology

Operational Ideology

Liberalism/Progressivism

Conservatism

Ideology as a Unidimensional Bipolar Spectrum

Libertarianism

Populism

Elite Polarization v. Public Polarization (Timeline and Extremity)

Partisan Polarization

Ideological/Issue Polarization

How Ideological/Issue Polarization is measured

Red America and Blue America

Geographic Polarizaiton

Affective Polarization

How affective polarization is measured

social sorting of the parties

Ideological sorting of the parties

Functional Theory of Attitudes

Utilitarian Function

Ego Defense Function

Value Expressive Function

Social Adjustment Theory

Learning Theory

Transfer of Affect

Political Homophily in Social Networks in the US

Geographic Sorting

Motivated Reasoning

Accuracy Goals

Direction Goals

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Fact Checking and Backfire Effects

Personality and Politics

Self-Interest

Group Interests

Historical Events

Big Five Personality Traits and Relationships (Ideology and political participation) (OCEAN)

Ideology as a Function of Value Prioritization

Moral Foundations Theory

Care/Harm

Fairness

Authority

Loyalty

Sanctity

Egalitarianism

Individualism

Authoritarianism

How Authoritarianism is measured

Social Dominance Orientation

Political Knowledge in the US

Political Knowledge trends in the US over time

How political knowledge is measured

rules of the game questions

substance of politics questions

political players questions

political interest in the US

Low Information Rationality

Heuristics

Cognitive Misers

Political Knowledge Gap

Misinformation

Of the politically informed…do they tend to be generalists or specialists?

Gaps in Political Knowledge

Demographic groups and gaps in political knowledge

Why does political knowledge matter?

Presidential Approval

Presidential Coat-Tails

Presidential Life-Cycle

Honeymoon Period

Rally Around the Flag Effect

Economic Evaluations and Presidential Evaluations