Public Opinion & Polling

Nonresponse bias

an issue that can be corrected it isn’t accounting for people who dont do pollings.

Public opinion

is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society it is the people’s views on matters affecting them.

Public opinion polls

a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample.

Push polls

Ulterior motives. These are not scientific, and are not reliable.

Polling sample

rely on the law of large numbers to measure the opinions of the whole population based only on a subset, and for this purpose the absolute size of the sample is important. (unless it happens to be close to the sample size.)

Sample bias

an issue that can be corrected where people pick a certain sample who may lean in one direction or the other

Exit polls

Done on election day or the day after

Political efficacy

a feeling that you can have an impact/affect change

Political generations

birth cohorts differ politically based on experiences around the onset of adulthood

Political socialization

learned beliefs and attitudes based on experiences and environmental. Agents being parents, schools, Media, peers/cohort and opinion leaders. As well as education.

Prospective voting

Which candidate will be better in the future?

Retrospective voting

Which candidate has done more for me in the past?

Random samples

is a type of probability sampling in which the researcher randomly selects a subset of participants from a population.