Deck 7: Public Opinion

Question 1

Which of the following questions is central to measuring public opinion?

A)Are the measurements actually collecting individual beliefs and attitudes?
B)Are individual beliefs and attitudes somehow different than their aggregate?
C)Is the aggregate collection accounting for differences in individual beliefs and attitudes?
D)Does the aggregate sum of "public opinion" constitute a meaningful communication or just noise?

Answer 1

D

Question 2

By 2015, how had the national conversation changed?

A)Public opinion on the issue of police-citizen interactions had shifted.
B)Black Lives Matter had become the center of attention in Southern states.
C)White citizens had changed their perspective to that of the protesters.
D)Many black citizens ceased supporting the Black Lives Matter group.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following best describes the minimalist paradigm?

A)Individuals have sufficient political knowledge to vote and take political action.
B)People have insufficient capacity to acquire political knowledge and cannot make rational political decisions.
C)Most people fall short of what we expect them to know, think about, and pay attention to in the complicated world of politics and policy.
D)Most citizens do not need to acquire political information or civic education, and governments run with minimal interaction from their citizenry.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Immediately following the death of Michael Brown, the Pew Research Center organized a survey by

A)conducting a random sample of 1,000 American adults using landlines and cell phones.
B)posting a self-selected survey on a public Internet site titled DoBlackLivesMatter.org.
C)going to Ferguson and personally interviewing more than 2,000 active protesters.
D)recording the opinions of callers who responded on local talk radio programs.

Question 5

Many observers could interpret the events of Ferguson, along with the August 5 shooting of John Crawford and the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, as evidence of

A)escalating black-on-black violence.
B)renewed white-on-black hatred
C)systemic police mistreatment of blacks.
D)continuous black-on-white crimes.

Question 6

A key concept in Walter Lippmann's research was the ______.

A)stereotype
B)constituency
C)elites
D)consideration

Question 7

American public opinion is difficult to understand because individuals

A)always have hidden preferences.
B)may not actually have meaningful preferences.
C)may have unexpressed preferences and attitudes.
D)may not understand the public opinion process.

Question 8

What two camps do arguments about the meaning of public opinion fall into?

A)(1)The average citizen either doesn't have or is unable to express meaningful opinion and (2)even though they may lack sufficient political information, citizens can find ways to work around their lack of information through friends, institutions, and partisanship.
B)(1)The average citizen possesses sufficient political information and (2)political information can be expressed and fluidly changed over time.
C)(1)Citizens seek to be educated about political information and (2)it is the responsibility of a democratic republic to educate and indoctrinate its citizens with political information.
D)(1)Citizens lack political knowledge  and (2)the lack of political knowledge creates a barrier to effective government.

Question 9

Immediately following the Michael Brown shooting, protesters were calling for

A)the release of autopsy results.
B)the name of the officer who shot Mr. Brown.
C)the release of Mr. Brown's personal effects.
D)the release of dash cam video of the encounter.

Question 10

On August 9, 2015, demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, rallied to the slogan

A)"Hands up, don't shoot."
B)"Black lives matter."
C)"All lives matter."
D)"Police brutality."

Question 11

One of the earliest and most influential advocates of the minimalist argument was ______.

A)Christopher Achen
B)Walter Lippmann
C)Phillip E. Converse
D)Robert Shapiro

Question 12

The Pew Survey that followed the Michael Brown incident demonstrated that Americans were ______ about whether Mr.Brown's death reflected important issues about the state of race in America.

A)deeply divided
B)indifferent
C)highly unified
D)moderately concerned

Question 13

Which of the following best describes the results of the Pew Survey following the Michael Brown incident?

A)More than 90% of all respondents indicated concern for the treatment of blacks by the police.
B)Only 10% of all respondents showed any concern for the treatment of blacks by the police.
C)Eighty percent of black respondents indicated concern for "important issues about race," while only 37% of white respondents agreed.
D)No significant information was obtained due to errors in survey construction and data collection.

Question 14

Which of the following national organizations got their start with the protests in Ferguson, Missouri?

A)Black Lives Matter
B)MoveOnDotOrg
C)Carry That Weight
D)The Peterson Project

Question 15

What observation did Representative John Conyers (D-Mich)make about the treatment of African Americans by police?

A)"There is little or no evidence of focused attention by police on black citizens."
B)"Police mistreatment of blacks and Hispanics has become a major problem in America."
C)"Police should be given latitude to perform their duties without question or oversight."
D)"There are virtually no African-American males who have not been stopped for driving while black."

Question 16

Which of the following best defines public opinion?

A)the sum of individual attitudes about governmental policies and issues
B)a representative sampling of public attitudes and opinions
C)the feelings and attitudes of an individual respondent
D)the results of a brief political poll conducted by a single candidate

Question 17

Which of the following best explains the assumptions of constituency?

A)Voters have attitudes, and those attitudes are expressed through political action.
B)The public has knowledge assets, and those assets are expressed through representative activation.
C)Candidates need political information, and the value of political information can be measured.
D)Constituents have preferences and attitudes that can be meaningfully expressed and measured.

Question 18

One of the most interesting and important debates about American public opinion is

A)the value of public opinion in governmental decisions.
B)whether public opinion actually exists.
C)the validity of public opinion in political races.
D)how to accurately measure public opinion among young adults.

Question 19

Information is a central part of representative government because

A)candidate access to political information is essential.
B)government control of information is critical.
C)citizens must have some knowledge of what their elected representatives are up to.
D)public information is of value to any governmental institution.

Question 20

This chapter focused on American public opinion in which of the following specific areas?

A)successful election of ethnic minorities in governmental situations
B)treatment of young African American men by law enforcement officials
C)educational pursuits of young men and women on college campuses
D)public reaction to large social movements such as Black Lives Matter

Question 21

Inherent in the minimalist critique is the idea that

A)Americans lack any relevant amount of political information.
B)not all Americans have the same amount of political information.
C)all Americans have equal access to and knowledge of political information.
D)political information contains no value and is irrelevant to the political process.

Question 22

In their 1996 book What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, two researchers came to the finding that

A)civic knowledge had a high degree of correlation to successful political efficacy.
B)knowledge of American government had no impact on the behavior of political candidates.
C)political knowledge was consistently high among all groups involved in the survey.
D)a significant percentage of Americans were unable to answer basic questions about American government.

Question 23

The small number of Americans who have well-informed and well-reasoned opinions is known as

A)elites.
B)masses.
C)politicos.
D)partisans.

Question 24

In their 1960 study, The American Voter, researchers, using large sample survey technology, made the observation that

A)young citizens tend to be underinvolved in politics, while older citizens tend to be highly involved.
B)most citizens are highly involved in political activities.
C)American citizens are no more or less involved in politics than citizens of other countries.
D)the average citizen is very much less involved in politics than is imagined.

Question 25

Philip E.Converse found that

A)elites serve as models for mass behavior.
B)masses do not learn from elites.
C)elites filter political knowledge to masses.
D)mass behavior lacks a level of education.

Question 26

The authors of What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters found that with regard to political knowledge, it was

A)highly equitable.
B)unequally distributed.
C)solely in the hands of the elite.
D)significantly inaccurate and biased.

Question 27

Lippmann described a public that is ______.

A)highly reflective and averse to efforts that might change their opinions
B)intensely interactive and fluidly reactive to change
C)moderately reflective and lacking sufficient levels of information to be of value
D)dangerously unreflective and vulnerable to attempts to shape our opinions

Question 28

Zaller's theory of consideration says that our

A)knowledge and emotions both come into play when forming an opinion.
B)desire to become politically active is influenced by family and societal acquaintances.
C)interest in the political process is an innate human response to societal engagement.
D)opinions and attitudes are influenced more by institutions than by family and friends.

Question 29

An individual's identification with a particular ______ is a powerful informational shortcut for voters in order to evaluate candidates and form opinions about them.

A)political attitude
B)social movement
C)political party
D)political campaign

Question 30

The majority of individuals, who lack necessary levels of political information, are described as

A)elites.
B)masses.
C)politicos.
D)partisans.

Question 31

The phenomenon in which "individual voters are unable to satisfy the requirements of a democratic system but the system of democracy meets certain requirements for a going political organization" is called the

A)collective system of individual and aggregate beliefs.
B)systems theory of organizational political information.
C)paradox of individual capabilities and systems capability.
D)individual theory of political beliefs and attitudes.

Question 32

According to Christopher Achen, political surveys may be used to

A)"shape" political findings depending upon the partisan or policy preferences of those who constructed or paid for the poll.
B)influence the transmission of political information on the basis of biased assumptions and inconclusive information.
C)communicate incomplete or inaccurate information to the mass public so as to unduly influence the voting public.
D)give value to political information for the purposes of constituents and representatives alike.

Question 33

Systematic attempts to make inferences about the opinions of large numbers of individuals by carefully sampling and asking questions to a small, randomly assigned sample of the larger population are defined as

A)public opinion surveys.
B)straw polls.
C)self-selected listener opinion polls.
D)exit polls.

Question 34

Researchers with the Pew Center periodically administer an instrument called ______, which is a test administered to random samples of Americans with questions covering political figures and current issues.

A)POLIQUEST
B)NEWSQUEST
C)NEWSIQ
D)PRONEWS

Question 35

A preconceived, often oversimplified idea about something, which people apply as a filter to the world, is best described as a/n

A)stereotype.
B)attitude.
C)opinion.
D)observation.

Question 36

Which of the following best describes a term referring to the lack of stable and coherent opinions on political issues and candidates?

A)stereotype
B)attitude
C)nonattitude
D)knowledge

Question 37

A combination of cognition and affect that contributes to any one answer to any one question or evaluation is defined as

A)assumption.
B)consideration.
C)stereotype.
D)aggregation.

Question 38

In 1975, political scientist Christopher Achen posed a challenge to the research of Phillip E.Converse, focusing on the

A)construction of the survey instrument.
B)wording of the survey instrument.
C)lack of coherence and stability in individual survey responses.
D)methods used to calculate survey results.

Question 39

According to political scientists John Zaller and Stanley Feldman, survey questions

A)must be constructed so as to produce the results desired by political experts.
B)fail to account for individual and institutional biases.
C)go beyond measuring public opinion by shaping and channeling it in order to frame issues.
D)are designed to collect individual stereotypes and generalizations without filtering them.

Question 40

Some political scientists have emphasized the possibility of the ______ in which individuals, imperfectly informed, can come up with meaningful assessments of problems and situations.

A)wisdom of crowds
B)social effect
C)group learning process
D)random sampling effect

Question 41

For the majority of questions of public policy with which elected officials will have to contend, elections are too ______ to reveal useful information.

A)narrow in scope
B)focused on candidates
C)broad a tool
D)focused on voter preferences

Question 42

In terms of measuring the preferences of constituents, the deeper challenge with elections is that they tend to

A)involve issues that are important to the candidates but have no relevance to the voters.
B)revolve around a small set of issues for which voters have intense preferences.
C)measure only a snapshot of public opinion at one particular point in time.
D)fail to take into account the reasons people vote in the first place.

Question 43

The main problem with scientific polling is one of

A)administration.
B)construction.
C)sampling.
D)administration.

Question 44

Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro contend that public opinion is a ______ phenomenon.

A)partisan
B)individual
C)aggregate
D)collective

Question 45

A sociologist at George Washington University pointed out that one incident on its own might not move American public opinion, but a(n)______ of these incidents might certainly shift public opinion.

A)critical mass
B)small number
C)isolated few
D)rising number

Question 46

A poll conducted several months after Mr.Brown's shooting found that large majorities of Americans expressed support for the use of ______ by law enforcement to record their interactions with people.

A)personal logs
B)body cameras
C)increased paperwork
D)dash cams

Question 47

The centrality of an individual's opinion in the sense of its ability to shape their views on other issues or candidate evaluations is defined as

A)direction.
B)intensity.
C)stability.
D)salience

Question 48

A system through which citizens communicate with their elected officials through phone calls, emails, or personal visits would best be described as

A)census taking.
B)indirect communication.
C)constituent polling.
D)direct communication.

Question 49

In November 2014, a grand jury announced Officer Wilson would ______.

A)face disciplinary charges
B)be indicted for aggravated murder
C)not be indicted for the shooting
D)resign his position as a police officer

Question 50

Immediately following the protests in Ferguson, many white residents commented that Mr.Brown's death

A)revealed racial tensions they had not realized were there.
B)uncovered a well-hidden system of ongoing and purposeful racism.
C)described the true extent to which racism had been addressed.
D)aggravated the already existing racist tendencies of white citizens.

Question 51

The component of individual opinion that is the common focus of political experts is

A)direction.
B)intensity.
C)stability.
D)salience.

Question 52

A political tool that gives elected officials broader knowledge of the overall preferences of the citizens as a whole is

A)straw polling.
B)scientific polling.
C)elections.
D)census taking.

Question 53

A political candidate has constructed a survey instrument and intends to administer it to a randomly selected sampling of respondents who are divided by geographic region, political party membership, age, gender, and ethnicity.This would be an example of a

A)scientific poll.
B)self-selected opinion poll.
C)straw poll.
D)census instrument.

Question 54

The president's role in focusing Americans' attention on specific issues and events and in making sense of tragedies and challenges is referred to as being the ______.

A)chief executive
B)chief communicator
C)chief of state
D)chief diplomat

Question 55

Which of the following is a limiting factor of most elections?

A)low turnout rates
B)degree of reliability
C)scope of public opinion
D)reliability of preferences

Question 56

In an essay, journalist Touré noted that the main issue was not Mr.Brown's past behavior but "How______?"

A)is the public supposed to react to ongoing racism
B)are police officers supposed to treat citizens
C)are black youth supposed to react when stopped by police
D)do we keep this tragedy from happening again

Question 57

According to your textbook, the battle over Ferguson quickly became a battle over ______, with a need to tell stories from a particular point of view.

A)political information
B)racial supremacy
C)individual biases
D)public opinion

Question 58

The strength of individual involvement and preference is defined as

A)direction.
B)intensity.
C)stability.
D)salience.

Question 59

The degree of change over time in response to differently worded survey questions or in different contexts of a particular opinion is defined as

A)direction.
B)intensity.
C)stability.
D)salience.

Question 60

One tool in which candidates assemble small groups of individuals for a directed conversation in which they hope to uncover patterns of thinking about issues and individuals is the ______.

A)focus group
B)political survey
C)self-selected opinion poll
D)random sampling

Question 61

When the race or ethnicity of respondents and interviewers impacts the outcome of a survey, political scientists refer to this as

A)race-of-interviewer effect.
B)racial discrimination.
C)interviewer bias.
D)respondent bias.

Question 62

Pollsters are likely to use weighting in which of the following situations?

A)when observed results need to be adjusted according to what is known about specific proportions from the larger population
B)when observed results are equivalent to what is known about specific proportions from the larger population
C)in all randomly selected sampling situations involving large populations of American citizens
D)This technique is rarely used, as it carries with it a set of sampling errors and other biases.

Question 63

A political candidate wishes to get immediate feedback as to how voters are casting their ballots in an election.Which of the following types of surveys would he/she most likely select?

A)self-selected listener opinion polling
B)random-digit dialing
C)exit polling
D)straw polling

Question 64

Those individuals who participate on your survey are known as

A)respondents.
B)participants.
C)subjects.
D)members.

Question 65

In a survey of Americans, political scientist George Bishop asked respondents about their opinions on "the Public Act Affairs Act of 1975." What problem did his study reveal?

A)Respondents tend to self-select.
B)Many respondents lack sufficient subject knowledge.
C)Survey wording can influence the results of a survey.
D)Question framing can impact the results of a survey.

Question 66

An academic political researcher would be more apt to use which of the following poll types in order to obtain reliable information?

A)random-digit dialing in which calls are placed to landlines and cell phones
B)scientific surveys with randomly selected respondents and multiple random survey instruments
C)Internet-based polling of large numbers of respondents with little respondent filtering
D)well-designed exit polls administered in a particular set of purposely selected precincts

Question 67

Random-digit dialing carries which of the following possible errors?

A)sampling error
B)interviewer error
C)wording error
D)tabulation error

Question 68

The goal of scientific polling is to

A)maximize uncertainty while maximizing cost.
B)minimize uncertainty while maximizing cost.
C)minimize uncertainty while minimizing cost.
D)maximize uncertainty while minimizing cost.

Question 69

Which of the following is considered a negative campaign tactic rather than a truly reflective poll?

A)straw poll
B)random digit dialing
C)self-selected listener opinion poll
D)push poll

Question 70

A random sampling has been taken from a normally distributed American population of respondents with 60% white, 30% black, 10% Hispanic, 50% male, and 50% female.The sample contains the following characteristics: 90% white, 10% black, 0% Hispanic, 50% male, 50% female.This sampling is likely to contain which of the following sampling errors?

A)oversampling of black respondents
B)undersampling of male respondents
C)oversampling of white respondents
D)undersampling of Hispanic respondents

Question 71

In order to obtain a random yet representative sample with minimal cost, many pollsters use which of the following tools?

A)self-selected listener opinion polling
B)straw polls
C)exit polls
D)random-digit dialing

Question 72

In 1980, television networks were releasing their presidential predictions after the polls had closed on the East Coast.Which of the following would be a major criticism of this decision?

A)Exit polls in other areas had yet to be tabulated and were not inclusive.
B)Exit polls were not predictively accurate enough to be of any use.
C)This action could influence voters in other time zones around the country.
D)Exit polling is seen as a disruption of the voting process and is illegal.

Question 73

A barrel contains 1000 balls with 800 of them blue, 150 red, and 50 green.A sample of 100 balls is randomly selected from the barrel with the following results: 40 green, 10 red, and 60 blue.This would be a possible example of which of the following types of errors?

A)sampling error
B)self-selection bias
C)questioning bias
D)Instrument construction error

Question 74

The variety of experiences and factors that contributes to our understanding of, attitudes toward, and values in the political space is defined as

A)political opinions.
B)political information.
C)political attitudes.
D)political socialization.

Question 75

Which of the following is a problem inherent to straw polls?

A)They are subject to self-selection bias.
B)Their target population is not randomly selected.
C)Interview bias can impact their outcome.
D)Question selection is often difficult.

Question 76

Party identification is highly transmitted through which of the following?

A)peer groups
B)families
C)employers
D)schools

Question 77

Which of the following plays the most important role in conveying civic education?

A)peer groups
B)families
C)employers
D)schools

Question 78

Question order is important in survey construction because

A)the sequencing of questions can influence answers.
B)the construction of question types influences survey outcome.
C)some questions are easier to understand than others.
D)more salient questions should be placed at the end of the survey.

Question 79

A key challenge to sampling is one of

A)self-selection.
B)random selection.
C)instrument construction.
D)participant selection.

Question 80

Which of the following is a problem inherent in self-selected listener opinion polls?

A)question wording
B)instrument construction
C)self-selection bias
D)nonopinion bias