POS 1041 FSU Exam 3 Gomez

What is Sampling?

An informal way of extracting information from a subset of the population

What is the probability of being chosen?

1/Population

What is sampling error?

N=1/Error^2

What is selection bias?

When randomization is not achieved because of personal bias

What is Recency Bias?

the phenomenon of a person most easily remembering something that has happened recently

List the different types of surveys

Straw Poll, Mail Surveys, Telephone Interviews, Face-to-Face Interviews, and Internet surveys

What is a straw poll?

unofficial show of hands, newspapers and magazines used this for hundreds of years

What is the issue with mail surveys?

Only older people do them

what is the issue with telephone interviews?

Caller ID has made less people answer

What is the issue with Face-to-Face interviews?

They are expensive to conduct

What is the issue with Internet Surveys?

They are self selective making them non-scientific

What is public opinion?

those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed

Define Attitude

An organized and consistent manner of thinking, feeling and reacting with regard to people, groups, social issues and more generally any event in one's enviroment

What is political socialization?

the process through which individuals acquire their political beliefs and values

What is ideology?

A comprehensive set of beliefs about the nature of people and about the role of an institution or government.

What do ideologies promote?

Consistency among political attitudes by connecting them to something greater, a more general set of principles

How do ideologs see the world?

As black and white with very little grey

What is liberal?

In the united states, a proponent of a political ideology that favors extensive government action to redress social and economic inequalities and tolerates social behaviors that conservatives view as deviant

What is conservative?

In the United States, a proponent of a political ideology that favors small or limited government, an unfettered free market, self-reliance, and traditional social norms

What is tribalism?

A strong loyalty towards ones tribe or social group

What is core values?

Moral belief held by citizens that underlie their attitudes towards political and other objects as integral parts of an individual's identity, these beliefs are stable and resistant to change

What is an example of core values?

Individualism, Egalitarianism, and moral traditionalism

What are morals?

Belief of right and wrong in our society

What does a relativist do?

Whatever is right to them

What are cognitive shortcuts?

A mental device allowing citizens to make complex decisions based on a small amount of information

What is an example of cognitive shorts?

A candidate's party label

What is another name for cognitive shortcuts?

Stereotypes

What is party identification?

An individual's enduring affective or instrumental attachment to one of the political party

What is the most accurate single predictor of voting behavior?

Party Identification

What is the problem with motivated reasoning?

Rather than searching rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms their beliefs people actually seek out information that confirms to what they already believe, this is called "confirmation bias", fact avoidance, and interpretive bias

What did Andrew Wakefield do?

1998 linked vaccines to gastrointestinal disease and autism, admits to deliberately falsifying and his article was redacted yet people still believe his work

What is the backfire effect?

The new info just makes them mad and stronger about their own opinion

What is framing?

Providing context that affects the criteria citizens use to evaluate candidates, campaigns, and political issues

What is an example of framing?

Lower estate taxes? people say no Lower death tax? people say yes

What is ambivalence?

A state of mind produced when particular issues evokes attitudes and beliefs that pull one in two directions

What do campaigns do?

Give voters the opportunity to learn more about the candidates

What do elections do?

Give citizens a say in who represents them

Who do elections motivate?

A small set of citizens who want to replace the current officeholders to keep a close eye on representatives and tell everyone about any malfeasance they detect

What is suffrage?

the right to vote

What is the historic expansion of suffrage?

The revolutionary war, Jacksonian democracy, women's suffrage, and african americans

What happened in the revolutionary war expansion?

no taxation without representation

What happened in the jacksonian era expansion?

Expansion to non land owning white males

What happened in women's suffrage?

the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote 1920

What state was the first to give women the right to vote?

Wyoming

What happened in the African american expansion?

the 15th amendment gave black men the right to vote, the voting rights act of 1905 protected that right

What is the gender gap?

The difference in the way men and women vote

What gave young americans the right to vote?

26th Amendment, 1971

Which president pushed for the 26th Amendment, and why?

Richard Nixon, because he was losing support for the war wanted to win their vote by giving them the right

The United states is......

the lowest democracy voter turnout

How to calculate voter turnout?

#of people voting/voting age population or #of people voting/voting eligible population

What are the costs of voting?

Information, time and physical costs

What are the information costs?

time and effort it takes to learn about an election and about the candidates

What are the time and physical costs?

rain, polling hours, standing in line, location

What is the calculus of voting?

R=PB-C, if this equals a negative number then it is irrational to vote

What is R?

Net rewards

What is P?

Probability of my vote being determined

What is C?

Costs

What is the paradox of voting?

Cost clearly outweighs benefits

What does the cost of voting lead to?

A socioeconomic bias

In what way does early registration affect the cost of voting?

negatively

In what way does number and location of polling places affect the cost of voting?

positively

In what way does early voting affect the cost of voting?

no significance

In what way does voter ID laws affect the cost of voting?

Mixed

What does greater turnout of voting result in?

Election goes democratic

What is retrospective voting?

voting based on the past performance of a candidate

What is pocketbook voting?

Little to no evidence, sociotropic voting

What is issue voting?

Voting for candidates based on their position on specific issues

What are specific issue voters?

people who base their vote on candidates or parties positions on one particular issue of public policy regardless of the candidates or parties positions on other issues

What is a party label?

A label carrying the parties brand name incorporating the policy positions and past performance voters attribute to it

What is a candidate?

A person who is running for elected office

What is a message?

A central thematic statement in a political campaign of why voters out to prefer one candidate over the others, candidates use strategy and ambiguity

What do negative campaigns do?

Decrease turnout because neither side turns out

What is a focus group?

A method of gauging public opinion by observing a small number of people brought together to discuss specific issues, usually under the guidance of a moderator

What is Duverger's Law?

single member districts using plurality rule

What is plurality rule?

Most votes to win

What is proportional rule?

100 seats 28% of the vote means they get 28 seats, allows for a multi party system

What does our system allow for?

A two party system

What is a political party essentially?

A team collectively trying to win government

What is coordination?

Actors within collective enterprises must figure out how to coordinate his or her effort with those of others. Coordination problems increase with the size of a group

What is the prisoner's dilemma?

A situation in which 2 (or more) actors cannot agree to cooperate for fear that the other will find its interest best served by reneging on agreements

What is the free-rider problem?

A situation in which individuals can receive benefits from a collective activity whether or not they helped to pay for it, leaving them with no incentive to contribute

What is transaction cost?

The costs of doing political business reflected in the time. And effort required to compare preferences and negotiate compromises

What is conformity cost?

The difference between what a person ideally would prefer and what the group with which that person makes collective decisions actually does. Individuals pay conformity costs whenever collective decisions produce policy outcomes that do not best serve their interests

What are the eras of political parties in America?

Origins of American political parties, organizational innovations, entrepreneurial politics, republican ascendancy, the new deal coalition, and the modern period

What was the know nothing party?

In response to irish-catholics migrating, anti-catholic and very violent, secret organization

Who was in the first federal congress?

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton

What does Jefferson start?

Political parties in congress because of his campaign organizations to get supporters in congress

What is Washington's view on political parties?

he believes they will divide the nation

What happened to the Federalist party following the war of 1812?

Because of their unwillingness to go to war the party disappears

Why is is called the era of good feeling?

20 years with one political party

Who were the candidates in the 1824 election?

Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, 5 candidates all from the same party

Who wanted to bring political parties back to the people?

Martin Van Buren

What is the spoils system?

A system in which newly elected officeholders award government jobs to political supporters and members of the same political party

What was the democratic party created for?

To create more democracy

When was the beginning of the Jacksonian Democracy?

1828

What party did William Henry Harrison run under?

The whig party

What did the whig party do?

Copy the idea of the democrats by mobilizing voters by getting them to the polls with fun things

Example of things that happened at polls

gigantic leather ball that was pushed through the town with a band

What did the Kansas Nebraska act create?

The republican party

What did the republican party consist of?

Leaders from the free-soil party, american know nothing, anti slavery, whigs, and democrats