Module 10: Public Opinion Campaigns and Elections

Lectures 16-17

Public Opinion

• Definition

  • Three Main Questions

    • How can we tell what people really think about politics? (Measurement Challenge)

    • Do most Americans have meaningful attitudes when it comes to politics? (Political ignorance challenge)

    • Where does public opinion come from and how does it change? (Explanatory challenge)

What are the three parts to sampling?

• Population

  • Entire group of people about which information is wanted

• Sample

  • Part or subset of the population that is used to gain information about the whole population

• Representativeness

  • Do the aggregate characteristics of the sample complexity approximate to the aggregate characteristics of the population?

What is scientific polling?

Definition

• Relies on a random sample

• Each member of the population has an equal chance of being part of the sample

Examples

• Random digit dialing

  • ~1200 person sample; margin of error is ~3% points

Why is sampling bias a measurement challenge and problem?

• Definition

  • A truly random sample a population is rarely feasible

    • People who agree to take part tend to be wealthier, more educated, and more politically knowledgeable

  • Able to account for some of the biases

• Example:

  • Phone polls using random digit dialing

    • Problems

      • Spread of cell phones (no landline!)

      • High refusal rate

What is one way to curb the sampling bias?

Weighting

• Definition

  • Must “weight up” members of groups you have difficult contacting

    • Member of that contact group also may not be representative

• Example

  • Hispanic voters + multi-language polls

    • Hispanic men who speak English vs. not

    • Disregards the people who cannot participate

Social desirability effect (“Bradley effect”/its reverse)

Definition

• Tendency for survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that presents them in the favorable light

• Social norms > true thoughts/behaviors

• Reverse Bradley effect

  • Both white and black people gave more votes to Bama than the pre-election polls had predicted (greater black vote than white vote)

• Origin

  • Tom Bradley (1982) ran for CA governor against a white cadidate

  • Lost despite leading in polls

  • Explanation for polling inaccuracies in interracial contests

    • Voters held racial attitudes towards black candidates

Question wording bias

• Definition

  • Occurs when survey questions are phrased to influence respondents towards a specific answer

    • Illustrates pollers inferred + held assumptions

  • Better polling

    • Must ask indirect questions that tap into stereotypes instead of straight up

      • Consider what the audience is appealed to based on trends and pictures

      • Ask if the question is balanced

  • Examine results with alternative question wording

• Examples

  • (1) Racial attitudes

    • “Are you a racist?” vs “If Blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as Whites” Agree or Disagree?

  • (2) Abortion

    • “Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?”

      • More constituents (54%)

    • “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, only certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?”

      • Less constituents (36%)

    • “Was abortion legal when a women’s (insert reason)”

      • Number of no’s increased per specific circumstance

Political Ignorance Challenge

Definition

• Voters remain “rationally ignorant” about politics and government

• Cost of acquiring information outweighs their perceived benefit of their individual vote

  • The group has more wisdom: “aggregate” public opinion

• Leads to low political knowledge and biased evaluation of information

Aggregate public opinion

Definition

• Collective sum of individual attitudes, beliefs, and preferences held by a population on specific issues

Attitudes

Definition

• enduring predisposition to respond to a person, group, topic, or issue in a particular way

• combines feelings, beliefs, and thoughts

• affects what people think of poltiics

Examples:

• General/abstract

  • Distrust of government

  • Right to privacy

• Specific/narrow

  • Views concerning Obama

  • View concerning abortion

Significance to the course

• Voters are not like politicians

  • Behavior is shaped by interest, identites, and values, not just self interest

  • Voting is an expressive activity

Ideologies

Definition

• Elaborate set of organized, internally consistent attitudes that allow one to understand, evaluate, and respond to political phenomena

• Liberal, conservative, libertarian

• ~1/5 of Americans use these terms spontaneously

• Most people express policy views that do not fit neatly into an ideological category

Examples

• Liberals

  • Welfare state, renewables, research, bigger governments

• Conservatives

  • Lower taxes, defense spending, state rights, property rights, America’s first foreign policy

Partisanship

Definition

• Shapes opinions and organizes other attitudes

  • Expression of loyalty to a party

• large majority of Americans identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans

  • psychological attachment: sense of identity

• Partisans

  • committed supporter of a cause, party, or person

Examples:

• "

Party Identification as a Measurement

Definition

• the psychological attachment to a party

• sources

  • political socialization: parents, family, neighborhood, friends

    • almost as stable as religion

  • political events when first voting can leave an imprint

    • 18-25 is the greatest change in partisanship

    • “political generations”

Examples:

• “Do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican or Democratic Party?”

  • 85-90% are partisans (if leaners are counted as partisans)

• Predicting the vote and stability

  • 2020 Exit Poll

    • 95% of Democrats voted for Hariss

    • 94% of Republicans voted for Trump

  • Interviewed the same people in 1965 + 1980 election

    • R 1965: 90%

    • D 1965: 34%

Party Identification as a Cue (Heuristic)

Definition

• indiciation about something of a policy

• functions as a primary heuristic (mental shortcut) for voters

  • allows them to make decision with low information by relying on party labels to infer candidate positions

Example:

• Lower Energy Costs Act

  • If Biden doesn’t support it and Trump supports it, what can you conclude about the act?

  • Provisions of the act

    • aims to increase domestic energy production and exports and reduce fees on energy development

    • reversed policies of the Inflation Reduction Act, mandating more oil and gas lease sales

Selective Perception

Definition

• Partisan's’ beliefs about objective conditions can be shaped by (distorted by) partisan bias

Examples:

• Inflation rate (1980): 13.5 %

• Inflation rate (1988): 4.1%

Significance to the course

• Voters are not like politicians

  • Emotions and identity are strongly tied