Deck 9: Public Opinion

Question 1

In statistical research, the ________ is the range of expected outcomes for a population given the data revealed by a sample drawn from that population.

A) region of uncertainty
B) zone of expectations
C) area of doubt
D) margin of error
E) edge of approximation

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Literary Digest mailed out millions of sample ballots to its readers months before a presidential election and then recorded responses from those completed and returned. From 1920 through 1932, these ________ predicted election results quite accurately, including the margins of victory.

A) straw polls
B) push polls
C) state polls
D) social surveys
E) sample surveys

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Noelle is interested in generating a random sample of 100 respondents for her survey on voting from Thomaston, Georgia. Using the phonebook for Thomaston, she writes down the name and phone number of every person and puts the names into a bag. Noelle then draws 100 names from the bag. Has Noelle successfully created a random sample?

A) No; she needs to account for demographic data to create a random sample.
B) No; not every person has an equal chance of being selected into her sample.
C) Yes; every person has an equal chance of being selected into her sample.
D) Yes; since she did not use demographic data, the sample is truly random.
E) It is impossible to know from the data provided.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Tony is a pollster. He has a list of 300 people from which he can draw a sample to survey. Tony wants to use the method of random selection to choose his sample. He decides that he will survey every third person on his list, for a sample size of 100 respondents. Has Tony accomplished his goal of using random selection to choose respondents?

A) Yes; since Tony has not purposefully selected specific people from the list and excluded others, his method is random.
B) Yes; since Tony has not used demographic criteria (like age, sex, or race) to select his respondents, his method is random.
C) Yes; with a population of 300 potential respondents, a sample of 100 people from the list will provide a random sample.
D) No; Tony needs to account for demographic criteria (like age, sex, and race) if he wants to be sure that his sample mimics the population.
E) No; not every member on the list has an equal chance of being selected into Tony's sample.

Question 5

Politicians are sometimes criticized for being slaves to public opinion instead of leading based on their own opinions of what is the right thing to do. Instead of being ________, these politicians simply do whatever the majority of their constituents want them to do.

A) delegates
B) trustees
C) entrepreneurs
D) followers
E) representatives

Question 6

In statistical research, a ________ is a subset of people who are chosen to provide information as representatives of the entire group in which a researcher is interested.

A) selection
B) sample
C) proportion
D) cohort
E) population

Question 7

In statistical research, a ________ is the entire group in which a researcher is interested, such as all adults living in the United States.

A) sample
B) selection
C) proportion
D) cohort
E) population

Question 8

Because of ________ methods of survey research, we know ________ about what people think and feel, and about the collective attitudes of the general public.

A) sophisticated; little
B) rudimentary; little
C) sophisticated; everything
D) sophisticated; a lot
E) rudimentary; a lot

Question 9

Policy makers and mass media communications often use measures of ________ as indicators of what "the people" want.

A) collective judgment
B) public mood
C) private mood
D) public opinion
E) private opinion

Question 10

________ are casual surveys or polls that are not designed to be statistically accurate.

A) Push polls
B) State polls
C) Straw polls
D) Sample surveys
E) Social surveys

Question 11

________ is the collection of attitudes, opinions, and preferences of the general public.

A) Public opinion
B) Public mood
C) An opinion poll
D) Collective judgment
E) A survey sample

Question 12

The relationship between the public and the government can be viewed as a special kind of ________, because the president works for all the people because they have hired him or her through their ballots and can fire the president at the next election.

A) collective action problem
B) coordination problem
C) prisoner's dilemma
D) unstable coalition
E) principal-agent problem

Question 13

To help predict the outcome of an upcoming Republican primary election, a polling firm randomly surveys 1,000 people from a list of all registered Republican voters in the state of Texas. In this case, the group of 1,000 registered Republican voters in Texas recruited to participate in the survey is the ________.

A) sample
B) selection
C) proportion
D) cohort
E) population

Question 14

Anuk likes ice cream better than cake, and cake better than pie. Her comparative enjoyment of ice cream, cake, and pie is a/an ________.

A) orientation
B) attitude
C) preference
D) survey response
E) opinion

Question 15

________ selection refers to any sampling process in which each member of a population has an equal chance of being selected into the sample.

A) Probability
B) Random
C) Propensity
D) Proportional
E) Equitable

Question 16

People's support or opposition regarding a government program ________ depends on how a question is posed. Public opinion ________ over short periods of time.

A) often; fluctuates
B) rarely; remains stable
C) often; remains stable
D) rarely; fluctuates
E) always; remains stable

Question 17

The study of public opinion is one of the ________ areas of research in the social sciences.

A) most developed
B) least developed
C) most complicated
D) most controversial
E) most studied

Question 18

To help predict the outcome of an upcoming Republican primary election, a polling firm randomly surveys 1,000 people from a list of all registered Republican voters in the state of Texas. In this case, the set of all registered Republican voters in Texas is the ________.

A) population
B) selection
C) cohort
D) proportion
E) sample

Question 19

Some people believe that politicians and officials in a democratic government should pay close attention to public opinion and try to follow it when possible, because the government not only derives its authority from the people but should also be responsive to their expressed desires. This is the ________ model of representation.

A) delegate
B) trustee
C) leader
D) follower
E) representative

Question 20

Which refers to how people rank-order potential outcomes or experiences?

A) attitude
B) orientation
C) opinion
D) evaluation
E) preference

Question 21

When individuals pay attention only to relevant information when making choices, make their decisions based on what is in their best interests, and do not systematically make mistakes, instead using new information to correct past mistakes and improve decision making, they are said to be acting ________.

A) selfishly
B) attitudinally
C) ideologically
D) rationally
E) affectively

Question 22

Alissa's parents are both Democrats, as are most of her friends. Alissa herself identifies with the Democratic Party, in part because she grew up surrounded by other Democrats and feels comfortable with the policies and personalities that are associated with that party. The development of Alissa's partisanship is best described as a process of ________.

A) priming
B) framing
C) sampling
D) socialization
E) prioritizing

Question 23

Which is a coherent, organized set of ideas and principles that functions as a core from which individuals draw when forming attitudes about public affairs?

A) partisanship
B) belief system
C) ideology
D) policy attitude
E) philosophy

Question 24

________ is the psychological process of shaping people's perceptions of a particular issue, figure, or policy.

A) Priming
B) Framing
C) Sampling
D) Socializing
E) Prioritizing

Question 25

A "push poll" is ________.

A) the same thing as a straw poll
B) a cost-efficient form of polling used in campaigns
C) not really polling at all but rather a form of marketing and campaigning
D) a form of polling that uses random selection to choose respondents
E) the preferred form of polling for candidates running campaigns

Question 26

Voters are being asked to decide whether to build a new county jail. Showing them photos of prisoners accompanying a news story about the proposal might cue a negative connotation in voters' minds. However, showing them contented prison workers from another county might cue voters to consciously or subconsciously think more positively about building the jail. Both types of photos are examples of ________.

A) frames
B) primes
C) samples
D) socializations
E) priorities

Question 27

________ has to do with establishing the context for an issue in such a way as to emphasize certain aspects over others.

A) Priming
B) Framing
C) Sampling
D) Socializing
E) Prioritizing

Question 28

The theory of affective intelligence distinguishes between people's dispositions to act in normal situations and how those dispositions can be interrupted when ________ come(s) into play.

A) money
B) power
C) political office
D) emotions
E) cognitions

Question 29

Voters are being asked to decide whether to build a new county jail. The public could be cued by politicians, pundits, other public figures, and television ads to consider the proposal in terms of its potential to raise their taxes on the one hand, or as a way to increase the number of jobs available to potential guards, cooks, and social workers on the other. These two types of cues are ________.

A) frames
B) primes
C) samples
D) socializations
E) priorities

Question 30

A ________ sample does not accurately represent the overall population from which it is drawn.

A) blended
B) biased
C) broken
D) random
E) bifurcated

Question 31

During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, campaign consultants in favor of George W. Bush's election conducted a poll in which potential primary voters were asked whether they would be likely to vote for or against John McCain after learning that his "campaign finance proposals would give labor unions and the media a bigger influence on the outcome of elections." Clearly, the consultants' goal was not to find out how many people were going to vote for McCain but to spread negative information about Bush's opponent while posing as pollsters. This is an example of ________ polling.

A) straw
B) push
C) random
D) agenda
E) strategic

Question 32

Many people express opinions and attitudes in surveys that are inconsistent with their own personal material interests but are in accordance with collective interests. For example, quite a few wealthy African Americans support more liberal social welfare policies than their wealthy white counterparts. This is an example of ________.

A) socialization
B) irrationality
C) group attachments
D) social connectedness
E) racial consciousness

Question 33

Choosing the best available options given one's interests and information is ________.

A) selfishness
B) rationality
C) attitudinalism
D) ideology
E) affect

Question 34

Sam wants to gauge public opinion on the death penalty. He asks survey respondents two questions: (1) "If you could choose between the following two approaches, which do you think is the better penalty for murder: the death penalty or life imprisonment with absolutely no possibility of parole?" and (2) "Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?" What do you think Sam will find?

A) The same percentage of people will be for and against the death penalty because both questions ask about the same concept.
B) More people will be for the death penalty when asked the first question than when asked the second question.
C) More people will be for the death penalty when asked the second question than when asked the first question.
D) The first question is biased, while the second question is unbiased.
E) The second question is biased, while the first question is unbiased.

Question 35

Response rates to phone surveys-the number of people who actually give interviews, as compared to the number selected and solicited through a random process-have been ________.

A) declining for the past few years and now stand at about 70 percent
B) declining for many years and now stand at about 30 percent
C) increasing for the past few years and now stand at about 30 percent
D) increasing for the past few years and now stand at about 50 percent
E) increasing for many years and now stand at about 70 percent

Question 36

Researchers have discovered that ________ campaign advertisements with emotional appeals polarize viewers, while ________ ads have the opposite effect, tending to make people less certain of their convictions.

A) positive; negative
B) negative; positive
C) neutral; negative
D) neutral; positive
E) positive; neutral

Question 37

The process of developing attitudes, opinions, and preferences through contact with family and friends is called ________.

A) priming
B) framing
C) socialization
D) sampling
E) prioritizing

Question 38

In a presidential election poll surveying a random sample of 1,200 voters, the margin of error is around 1.5 percent. This means that if a candidate, according to the sample of voters in the survey, will receive 51 percent of the vote on Election Day, we can confidently predict that in the real election that candidate will receive ________ percent of the vote.

A) 51
B) 49.5 percent to 52.5
C) 50 percent to 52
D) 48.5 percent to 53.5
E) We cannot predict the exact percent of the vote because statistics are not reliable.

Question 39

Students studying at a university library on Saturday night are probably a ________ sample of the population of college students.

A) useful
B) rational
C) proper
D) socialized
E) biased

Question 40

Susan conducts a telephone survey about offshore drilling. The people who respond to her calls are overwhelmingly senior citizens, with very few young adults answering her survey questions. Her sample is likely to be ________.

A) biased, because younger and older voters hold different opinions on the issue
B) biased if a greater number of older voters than younger voters respond
C) biased, because she did not randomly select her respondents
D) unbiased if younger and older voters hold similar opinions on the issue
E) unbiased, because the age of a respondent does not matter

Question 41

Compared to the early 1950s, the percentage of self-identified Independents has ________.

A) increased sharply
B) decreased somewhat
C) decreased sharply
D) doubled in size
E) stayed roughly the same

Question 42

Ideology and partisanship are two fundamental ________ that are usually long term and shape people's opinions toward specific politicians and government policies.

A) attitudes
B) values
C) predispositions
D) worldviews
E) opinions

Question 43

Much scholarly research has studied the relationship between the national government and public opinion. The general consensus is that policy changes __________.

A) typically come after changes in public opinion
B) typically come before changes in public opinion
C) show no relationship to public opinion
D) and public opinion change at the same time
E) None of these answers is correct.

Question 44

Although the United States is one of the most ________ nations of the world, its citizens express remarkable ________ about democracy and forms of government.

A) homogeneous; disagreement
B) heterogeneous; disagreement
C) homogeneous; ambivalence
D) homogeneous; consensus
E) heterogeneous; consensus

Question 45

Which ideology represents the extreme right of the ideological spectrum in Western political thought, but was discredited in the twentieth century by regimes in Germany and Italy?

A) Fascism
B) Conservatism
C) Liberalism
D) Communism
E) Socialism

Question 46

As the education level of Americans has steadily increased since the 1950s, the level of public ignorance has ________.

A) also steadily increased
B) slowly decreased
C) increased exponentially
D) remained roughly constant
E) rapidly decreased

Question 47

Brian is often hopeful about the prospects of new policies to improve social conditions, and he supports the redistribution of wealth and resources. It is most likely that Brian identifies himself as ideologically ________.

A) conservative
B) libertarian
C) agrarian
D) authoritarian
E) liberal

Question 48

Which ideology, most closely identified with Marxism, represents the extreme left of the ideological spectrum in Western political thought since the mid-nineteenth century?

A) Fascism
B) Conservatism
C) Liberalism
D) Communism
E) Socialism

Question 49

Voters appear to separate their opinions about the entire legislative body from their evaluations of their own representatives. They often give ________ evaluations of Congress as a whole, while giving a more ________ evaluation of their individual representatives or senators.

A) neutral; positive
B) negative; positive
C) neutral; negative
D) positive; negative
E) negative; neutral

Question 50

Joe feels personally attached to the Republican Party despite important disagreements between the party's platform and his own issue attitudes. Joe's relationship to the Republican Party is consistent with the idea of ________.

A) partisanship
B) belief systems
C) ideology
D) postmaterialism
E) materialism

Question 51

Through careful analysis, scholars have shown that government policy changes in a liberal or conservative direction on economic policy come ________ a public opinion mood change in the ________ direction.

A) before; same
B) after; same
C) before; opposite
D) after; opposite
E) concurrently; same

Question 52

When considering Social Security policy preferences by income group, scholars have found that _____________.

A) the bottom 10 percent group has similar preferences to the middle 80 percent and the top 10 percent.
B) all groups overwhelmingly desire increases in Social Security spending
C) only the bottom 10 percent desire increases in federal spending when compared to the other two groups
D) both the bottom 10 percent group and the top 10 percent group prefer federal spending to remain about the same
E) only the middle 80 percent group prefers increases in federal spending

Question 53

In terms of religious behavior, the United States more closely resembles ________ than ________.

A) the developing world; industrialized nations
B) industrialized nations; the developing world
C) the First World; the Third World
D) European nations; African nations
E) Australia and Japan; countries in Central America

Question 54

People can engage in what Anthony Downs called "________ ignorance" about politics by free riding off people who happen to like politics or need to know about politics for their jobs.

A) ideological
B) political
C) rational
D) functional
E) American

Question 55

Kendra is attached to core values of moral traditionalism and economic liberty. These values lead her to express support for policies that limit access to abortion services and lower taxes on income, among other things. Kendra's beliefs and attitudes are consistent with a conservative ________.

A) partisanship
B) rationality
C) priority
D) ideology
E) affect

Question 56

The best predictor of how an individual will vote in a congressional or presidential election is ________.

A) ideology
B) affective intelligence
C) worldviews
D) party identification
E) evaluation of the candidates

Question 57

Juanita is an enthusiastic fan of college football. She spends much of her free time watching games, reading about coaches' strategies and styles, and listening to sports talk radio. As a result, Juanita has little opportunity to keep up with political news and knows little about the candidates in an upcoming election. Juanita is, therefore, ________ about politics.

A) ideologically framed
B) fairly socialized
C) functionally partisan
D) rationally ignorant
E) ideologically primed

Question 58

Although Clarence knows little about politics and does not have many strongly held views on political issues, he responds to a variety of telephone survey questions about current political events to be polite to the interviewer. Clarence's survey responses are likely ________.

A) rational preferences
B) nonattitudes
C) precognitions
D) primed opinions
E) framed opinions

Question 59

Which of the following is loyalty or psychological attachment to a political party?

A) ideology
B) belief system
C) party identification
D) policy attitude
E) philosophy

Question 60

The proportion of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats has been consistently ________ than the proportion identifying themselves as Republicans since ________.

A) higher; reliable data were first collected in the 1950s
B) higher; the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon in 1974
C) higher; the failed effort to remove President Clinton from office in 1999
D) lower; reliable data were first collected in the 1950s
E) lower; the "stagflation" that occurred during the Carter administration

Question 61

What is a population and what is a sample? How are these concepts important for understanding the study of public opinion in the United States? What is a random sample? Why is randomization important to making useful inferences about public opinion? What are some sources of bias that might corrupt the results of a survey even if researchers are careful to try to reach a random sample of the population they are studying?

Question 62

Explain the concept of political socialization. How does the process of socialization influence the opinions a person expresses? What are three likely sources of political socialization for individuals raised in the United States?

Question 63

What is an ideology? What are the major features of liberal and conservative ideologies in modern American politics? What is the relationship, if any, between ideology and partisan identification?

Question 64

What are priming and framing? How are the two concepts alike? How are they different? Give an example of priming and an example of framing in hypothetical survey questions. How would these cognitive processes influence respondents' answers in your examples?

Question 65

What is rationality? How does an individual's rational consideration of his or her interests influence his or her attitudes toward public policies or public figures? How might a person's rational consideration of his or her own self-interest lead him or her to become less informed or less involved regarding important political questions?