Chapter 6: Public Opinion

Key Terms:

public opinion; demography; census; melting pot; Simpson-Mazzoli Act; reapportionment; political socialization; opinion leaders; reference group; primary group; secondary group; sample; population; universe; random sample; sampling error; random-digit dialing; cluster sampling; quota sample; "bandwagon effect"; exit poll; political ideology; political participation; protest; civil disobedience; ideology; conservative; liberal; moderates

A. Effects of American diversity
 
1. The United States remains one of the most diverse countries in the world today.

2. Such diversity makes the study of American public opinion especially complex, for there are many groups with a great variety of opinions. Public opinion:  The expression of attitudes about government and politics. It is the distribution of the population's belief about politics and policy.

3. The task is further complicated by the fact that people are often not well informed about the issues, and they may have contradictory attitudes.

4. There are also consequences for democracy: the least informed are also the least likely to participate in the political process, thereby leading to inequalities in who takes part in political action.
 

B. One way of looking at the American public is through demography (the science of population changes).
 
1. The most valuable tool for understanding demographic changes in America is the census, which was first conducted in 1790 to comply with the constitutional requirement that the government conduct an actual enumeration" of the population every ten years.

2. Once a group can establish its numbers, it can then ask for federal aid in proportion to its size.
 

C. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants.
 
1. Americans live in a multicultural and multilingual society that is becoming more diverse all the time.

2. Despite this diversity, minority groups have assimilated many basic American values, such as the principle of equality.

3. Today, federal law allows up to 630,000 new immigrants to be legally admitted every year (which is the equivalent of adding a city with the population of Washington, D.C., every year).

4. There have been three great waves of immigration to the United States:
 

a. Before the Civil War — northwestern Europeans

b. After the Civil War (reaching its high point in the first decade of the twentieth century) — southern and eastern Europeans

c. After World War II (the 1980s saw the largest number of immigrants of any decade in American history) — Hispanics and Asians
 

D. With its long history of immigration, the United States has often been called a melting pot (a mixture of cultures, ideas, and peoples), but policymakers now speak of a new minority majority (a phrase meaning that America will eventually cease to have a white, generally Anglo-Saxon majority).
 
1. The largest component of the minority majority currently is the African American population (one in eight Americans).
 
a. A legacy of racism and discrimination has left the African American population economically and politically disadvantaged, but African Americans have recently been exercising a good deal of political power.

b. By 1999, it was reported that nearly 33 percent of African Americans currently live under the poverty line, compared to about 10 percent for whites.
 

2. If current immigration and birth rates continue, the Hispanic population will outnumber the black population early in the twenty-first century.
 
a. Hispanics are rapidly gaining power in the Southwest, and cities like El Paso, San Antonio and Denver have elected mayors of Hispanic heritage.

b. The problem of what to do about illegal immigration is of particular concern to the Hispanic community.

c. The Simpson-Mazzoli Act required all employers to document the citizenship of their employees (as of June 1987).
 

(1) This Act causes concern among leaders of immigrant groups, who worry that employers might decline to hire members of such groups rather than take any chances of non-compliance with the law.

(2) The Simpson-Mazzoli Act also granted amnesty to illegal aliens who had resided in the United States since January 1982.

(3) In 1994, a federal advisory commission recommended the establishment of a computerized data bank to keep track of all people authorized to work in the United States.
 

3. Unlike Hispanics who have come to America to escape poverty and African Americans who were brought as slaves, the recent influx of Asians has been headed by a new class of professional workers looking for greater opportunity.
 
a. Asian Americans are the most highly skilled immigrant group in American history, and they are the best off of America's minority groups.

b. As of 1998, thirty-seven percent of Asian Americans over the age of twenty-five hold a college degree (almost twice the national average).
 

4. The Native American population declined from an estimated twelve to fifteen million American Indians before the Europeans arrived in America to 210,000 by 1910; as of the 1990 census, approximately 1.8 million Americans listed themselves as being of Indian heritage.
 
a. Native Americans are by far the worst off of America's minority groups.

b. Statistically, they are the least healthy, the poorest, and the least educated group.

c. Most remain economically and politically disadvantaged.  The 1990 census found that over half of the Indians in the Dakotas (site of the largest Sioux reservations) lived below the poverty line.
 

5. It is estimated that all the minority groups combined should pass the 50 percent mark by the middle of the next century.
E. Demographic changes are associated with political changes.
 
1. The regional shift
 
a. Over the last fifty years, much of America's population growth has been centered in the West and South, particularly with movement to the "sunbelt" states of Florida, California, and Texas from "rust belt" states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.

b. The process of reapportionment occurs every ten years following the census, and brings with it gains or losses of congressional representation as the states' population balance changes (New York has lost about one-third of its delegation over the last fifty years).
 

2. The graying of America
 
a. The fastest growing age group in America is composed of citizens over age sixty-five: people are living longer as a result of medical advances, and the birth rate has dropped.

b. By the year 2020, there will be only two working Americans for every person over the age of sixty-five. There are political and economic consequences of the aging population:
 

(1) The Social Security system is second only to national defense as America's most costly public policy; the growing demands to care for the elderly will almost certainly become more acute in the decades ahead.

(2) New political interests have been mobilized under the umbrella of "gray power;" in Florida, the state's senior citizens typically vote against referenda for school taxes, and they have secured tax breaks and service benefits for older people.

A. How Americans learn: the process of political socialization
 
1. Political socialization:   The process through which a person acquires knowledge, a set of political attitudes and orientations, and forms values and opinions about the political system and other social issues.

2. Only a small portion of Americans' political learning is formal; informal learning is much more important.

3. Agents of socialization are numerous; they include family, the media, and schools.
 

a. A family's role is central because of its monopoly on two crucial resources in the early years — time and emotional commitment.
 
(1) Although most students like to think of themselves as independent thinkers, one can accurately predict how the majority of young people will vote simply by knowing the political leanings of their parents.

(2) Moving away from the family and into adult life does result in individuals becoming somewhat less like their parents politically, but there is still more political agreement than disagreement between generations.
 

b. The mass media has been referred to as "the new parent."
 
(1) Television now displaces parents as the chief source of information as children get older.

(2) Television, without question, is the most common source of political information, outdoing the print media and peer-group discussions. Information does not necessarily equate to influence however.

(3) A recent study attributed the relative lack of political knowledge of the youth of the 1990s to their media consumption habits (with older people paying the most attention to the news and young adults the least).
 

c. Governments throughout the world use the schools in their attempt to instill a commitment to the basic values of the system. The school system is a tremendous influence on the ideas that young children develop about politics and social issues. It is the most obvious intrusion of the government into American's political socialization.
 
(1) Both democratic and authoritarian governments want students to learn positive features about their political system because it helps ensure that youth will grow up to be supportive citizens.

(2) Education exerts a profound influence on a variety of political attitudes and better educated people are more likely to vote, to show more knowledge about politics and public policy, and to be more tolerant of opposing opinions.

(3) Educational socialization can sometimes be a dangerous tool (as in Nazi Germany).
 

B. Politics is a lifelong activity
 
1. Aging increases one's political participation and the strength of one's party attachment.

2. Political behavior is to some degree learned behavior.

3. Governments largely aim their socialization efforts at the young (not the old) because one's political orientations grow firmer as one becomes more socialized with age.

A. Public opinion
 
1. What Americans believe (and believe they know) is public opinion, i.e., the distribution of people's beliefs about politics and policy issues.

2. There is rarely a single public opinion: with so many people and such diversity of populations, there are also many opinions. Public opinion also fluctuates over time. For example, President Eisenhower is noted for having left office with a public approval rating of his performance, i.e., public opinion of his performance, that was nearly as high as when he entered. There were no crises, no depression, recession, etc.

3. The President has traditionally had the greatest influence in shaping public opinion in the area of foreign policy.  For that reason, when faced with a foreign policy crisis, public opinion and public support for the President is likely to increase.

3. Public opinion is one of the products of political learning.
 

B. Characteristics of Public Opinion
 
1.  Those who measure public opinion are not only interested in the direction of how the public is feeling at a given moment. They also want to know how and how likely people are to change their minds. That is why they try to gauge characteristics of public opinion.
 
a. Saliency. The saliency of an issue is the degree to which it is important to a particular individual or group. For example, Social Security is an issue with high salience for senior citizens. Among young voters, Social Security has a much lower salience.

b. Intensity. How strongly do people feel about a particular issue? When the intensity of a group's opinion is high, that group can wield political influence far beyond their numbers. For example, the majority of Americans have favored some form of gun control for decades. However, the intensity of that opinion is not high, and most Americans consider other issues when they vote. The National Rifle Association (NRA) represents a minority position. However, the intensity of their opposition to gun control is high. As a result, its members are likely to decide how they will vote based primarily on a candidate's position on gun control. This, in turn, has made the NRA one of the nation's most powerful lobbying organizations.

c. Stability. Public opinion on issues changes over time. Some dimensions of public opinion, such as support for democracy and a controlled free-market economy remain relatively stable. Others can change quickly, as was the case during the last two years of the Bush administration. During the Gulf War (January 1991), President Bush recorded the highest approval ratings of any president since 1945. Less than two years later, the majority of Americans disapproved of his performance as president.
 

2. In the United States, public opinion is measured regularly through elections. Elections measure public opinion indirectly, however, since votes for — or against — candidates can rarely be translated into clear and specific opinions. Referendums measure the public's opinion on specific issues, but do so only infrequently. Public opinion is measured most frequently and directly by public opinion polls.
C. How Public Opinion is Formed
 
1. The Family
 
a.  Political socialization begins within the family, where children learn basic attitudes toward authority, property, and rules of behavior.

b.  Adult political behavior is firmly based on attitudes and values formed in the home in early childhood.
 

2. The Schools
 
a. Schools give children formal knowledge that they will need to be good citizens.

b.  Schools are also centers of informal learning about other groups in society.  Studies have shown that young children in the United States associate government with the flag.
 

3.  Opinion Leaders
 
a. Opinion leaders are people who have more than the usual amount of influence on the attitudes of others.

b.  They include politicians, members of the press, and professional people.
 

4.  The Mass Media
 
a.  The mass media, including television, radio, film, books, magazines, and newspapers, have a large influence on public opinion.

b.  Television alone is a major influence on people's daily lives.
 

5.  Group Influence. The closer the reference group, the greater the impact on a person.
 
a.Reference group: A group whose views serve as guidelines to an individual's opinion.

b. Primary group:  A group that a person comes into face-to-face contact with in everyday life; for example, friends, office associates, or a social club. 

c.Secondary group:  An organization or group of people, such as labor unions or fraternal, professional, or religious groups, that may influence an individual's opinion. 
 

6.  A Mix of Other Determining Factors. Although there is no one-to-one correlation between people's backgrounds and their political beliefs, people who share certain traits tend to share political beliefs. Here are some of the factors that influence people's ideological and political attitudes:
 
a. Education level. The more education an individual receives, the more likely that person is to hold liberal political positions. Better educated men and women show more knowledge about politics and public policy; are more likely to vote in elections; and, are more tolerant of opposing opinions.

b. Race/ethnicity. Racial and ethnic groups who disproportionately populate the lower income levels tend to be more liberal than other Americans. Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than other Americans to support liberal social programs, for example. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to vote than whites of their same income level. There are exceptions to these rules, however: Cuban Americans, for one, tend to be very conservative. Among Americans of European descent, southern and eastern Europeans are generally more liberal on economic issues than are those of British and French descent. On social issues, however, southern and eastern Europeans tend to be more conservative, in accordance with their religious beliefs (many are Catholic).

c. Religion. Among the various religious groups in the U.S., Jews and African American Protestants are generally the most liberal. Catholics also lean toward the political left, although, as mentioned above, many are conservative on social issues. Devout white Protestants tend to be more conservative. This is particularly true in the South, where white Protestants who attend church regularly are among the nation's strongest supporters of the Republican Party.

d. Gender. Women overall are more liberal than men. They are more likely to vote Democratic, more likely to support government social welfare programs, and less likely to support increases in military spending.

e. Income level. Americans in higher income brackets tend to be more supportive of such liberal goals as racial and sexual equality. They also support greater international cooperation. However, they tend to be less sympathetic government social welfare goals. Poorer Americans, conversely, are generally more conservative on all issues, except those concerning social welfare. Region. Regional differences arise from different economic and social interests. In the heavily unionized Midwest, for example, Democratic candidates and goals are generally successful. In the more religious South, conservatism is predominant. The ethnic and racial mix of the East Coast has made it the most liberal region of the country. The West Coast, toward which many Americans continue to migrate, is the most polarized, with strong liberal and conservative contingencies scattered up and down the coast. Liberals tend to congregate in the cities; elsewhere, westerners are generally conservative. Poor white voters are LEAST likely to vote in a typical election.
 

D. Measuring public opinion
 
1. Public opinion polling was first developed by George Gallup in 1932. The "Gallup Poll" continues to this day, and is only one of several polls that are regularly conducted on a national scale.

2. Polls rely on a sample of the population A sample is a relatively small proportion of people who are chosen as representative of the whole. The group to be measured is called the "population," and the pollster takes a "random sample" (also known as a "probability sample").
 

a. A sample of from 1,000 to 1500 people can be representative of the "universe." Universe:  The total group from which poll takers select a random sample in order to measure public opinion. Random sample:  A group, chosen by poll takers, that is representative of the universe being polled. 

b. The key to the accuracy of opinion polls is random sampling, which operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being selected

c. There is always a certain amount of risk of inaccuracy involved, known as the sampling error. It is the level of confidence about a public opinion poll.
 

(1) Proper sampling techniques must be followed in order to remain within the margin of error. Public opinion polls are only estimates because all surveys have a sampling error.

(2) A typical poll of about 1000 to 1500 respondents has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percent. The "plus or minus X percent" is the sampling error. Close polls are difficult to interpret because of a possible sampling error.

(3) In 1936, a Literary Digest poll underestimated the vote for President Franklin Roosevelt by 19 percent because their methods were flawed: they drew their sample from telephone books and motor vehicle records. In the middle of the Great Depression, the people on these lists were above the average income level and were not representative of the voting public.
 

d. Accurate representation is the most important feature, not the number of responses; as techniques have advanced, typical sample sizes have been getting smaller.

e. Nonetheless, public opinion data can best, and most accurately, be measured through the use of polling, i.e., surveys of random samples of the public.
 

3. Sophisticated technology is now available for measuring public opinion.
 
a. Computer and telephone technology have made surveying less expensive and more commonplace. It would be prohibitively expensive to ask every citizen his or her opinion on a whole range of issues, consequently, polls rely on a sample of the population.

b. Most polling is now done on the telephone with samples selected through random-digit dialing, in which calls are placed to telephone numbers within randomly chosen exchanges.
 

(1) They are used by the media to project election winners before most votes have be counted except in close races.

(2) They have been criticized in presidential elections for declaring a winner before voting is completed on the West Coast.

(3) People are simply asked how they voted, rather than how they plan to vote.
 

c. There are also some disadvantages to the new technology. Seven percent of the population does not have a phone, and people are somewhat less willing to participate over the telephone than in person.
4. Because of the high cost of running a truly random sample, polling organizations use cluster sampling as well as quota sampling.
 
a.Cluster sampling: A technique used by polling organizations in which several people from the same neighborhood are , interviewed, with the geographic areas chosen at random. 

b.Quota sample: A method of polling, considered less reliable than a random sample, in which members of a particular group are interviewed in proportion to the group's percentage in the population as a whole. 
 

E. The role of polls in American democracy
 
1. Supporters of polling believe it is a tool for democracy by which policymakers can keep in touch with changing opinions on issues.

2. Critics of polling think it makes politicians more concerned with following than leading and may thus discourage bold leadership.

3. Political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg argues that polls actually weaken democracy because polls permit government to think that it has taken public opinion into account when only passive (often ill-informed) opinions have been counted.

4. Polls can weaken democracy by drowning out election issues with a steady flow of poll results, thus distorting the election process; polls are often accused of creating a "bandwagon effect." "Bandwagon effect": The possible tendency of some voters or convention delegates to support the candidate who is leading in the polls and seems likely to win. 

5. Emphasis on poll results sometimes has drowned out the issues of recent presidential campaigns.

6. Public opinion polls have shown that people are more likely to recognize slogans from TV commercials than famous political figures.

7. The election day exit poll is probably the most criticized type of poll.
 

a. In an exit poll, voting places are randomly selected from around the country.  As voters leave the polls in the selected locations, workers ask every tenth person how he or she voted.

b. The results enable the television networks to project all but very close races before the polls even close.

c. In the 1980, 1984, and 1988 presidential elections, the networks declared a winner while millions on the West Coast still had hours to vote (but analysis of survey data show that few voters have actually been influenced by exit poll ).
 

8. Perhaps the most pervasive criticism of polling is that pollsters can get pretty much the results they want by altering the wording of questions, even slightly. Although the bias in such questions may be easy to detect, the ethical problem is that an organization may not report how the survey questions were worded.
F. What polls reveal about Americans' political information
 
1. Polls have revealed again and again that the average American has a dismally low level of political knowledge.
 
a. Less than half of the public can name their representative in the House of Representatives, and 14 percent of Americans in a 1988 survey could not even find their own country on a map of the world.

b. Surveys also show that citizens around the globe lack a basic awareness of the world around them.
 

2. Part of the reason the American political system works as well as it does is that people do know what basic values they want upheld, even when they do not have information on policy questions or decision makers.

3. Increased levels of education over the last four decades have scarcely raised public knowledge about politics.

4. Voter education and participation combine to discover new directions in public policy. Changes in public policy are most likely to occur when voters elect challengers, since the vote many times constitutes a protest against the status quo.

A. Do people think in ideological terms?
 
1. A political ideology is a coherent set of values and beliefs about public policy.

2. Ideological thinking is not widespread in the American public, nor are people necessarily consistent in their attitudes.

3. The authors of the classic study The American Voter (Angus Campbell, et al.) first looked carefully at the ideological sophistication of the American electorate in the 1950s. They divided the public into four groups, according to ideological sophistication.
 

a. Ideologues — Only 12 percent could connect their opinions and beliefs with broad policy positions taken by parties or candidates.

b. Group benefits voters — Forty-two percent of Americans thought of politics mainly by the groups they liked or disliked.

c. Nature of the times voters — The "handle on politics" of 24 percent of the population was limited to whether the times seemed good or bad to them.

d. No issue content voters — Twenty-two percent of the voters were devoid of any ideological or issue content in their political evaluations; most simply voted routinely for a party or judged the candidates by their personalities.
 

4. If the same methods are used to update the analysis of The American Voter through the 1980s, one finds some increase in the proportion of ideologues, but the overall picture looks much the same.
 
a. For most people, the terms liberal and conservative are not as important as they are for the political elite.

b. Thus, the authors of The American Voter concluded that to speak of election results as indicating a movement of the public as either "left" or "right" is a misnomer because most voters do not think in such terms.
 

B. People liked Reagan but not his policies.
 
1. President Reagan led what he proclaimed to be a conservative revolution in the 1980s.
 
a. Central to his ideology was that government had gotten too large over the years.

b. According to Reagan, government was not the solution to society's problems - it was the problem.

c. Despite Reagan's victories throughout the 1980s, scholarly analyses included the common theme that people liked Reagan but not his policies (in practice, they support increased government spending and intervention for most domestic programs).
 

2. If so many people disagreed with Reagan, why was he such a popular president (and why was George Bush able to run successfully on his record in 1988)?
 
a. Recent presidential elections have show that voters are less interested in ideology or issue positions than general results.

b. The 1980 election was more about voting Carter out of office than voting Reagan into it.

c. With the economic downturn in 1992, these same swing voters propelled Bill Clinton into the White House.

A. Political participation encompasses the many activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue.
 
1. Americans have many avenues of political participation open to them; however, voting in presidential elections is the most common form of political participation in the United States. Voter turnout is highest in presidential elections.

2. Paradoxically, the United State has a participatory political culture, but only 49 percent of Americans voted in the 1996 presidential election, and the numbers get even less for state and local elections. Political activity is simply NOT an important part of the everyday like of most Americans.
 

B. Political scientists generally distinguish between two broad types of participation, i.e., conventional and unconventional.
 
1. Conventional participation includes many widely accepted modes of influencing government, such as voting, trying to persuade others, ringing doorbells for a petition, and running for office.
 
a. Participation in politics reflects specialization and division of labor.

b. Voting is a common denominator among most political activists, but other kinds of participation attract different clusters of people.

c. Most adult Americans, when it comes to political participation, will vote in an election, but only a minority of people will do more than that politically.

d. The most common method of political participation by individuals is voting in a presidential election.
 

2. Unconventional participation includes activities that are often dramatic, such as protesting, civil disobedience, and even violence.
 
a. Protest is a form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics, and protests today are often orchestrated to provide television cameras with vivid images.

b. Throughout American history, individuals and groups have sometimes used civil disobedience (consciously breaking a law that they think is unjust), illustrated in different eras by people like Henry David Thoreau in the 1840s and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1950s and 1960s.

c. Nonviolent civil disobedience was one of the most effective techniques of the civil rights movement in the American South.

d. Political participation can also be violent (as in some of the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s).
 

C. Class, inequality, and participation
 
1. In the United States, participation is a class-biased activity, with citizens of higher socioeconomic status participating more than others.

2. Minority groups like Hispanics and African Americans are below average in terms of political participation.
 

a. The participation differences between these groups and the national average has been declining.

b. When blacks, Hispanics, and whites of equal incomes and educations are compared, it is the minorities who participate more in politics.

c. Minorities tend to have a group consciousness that gives them an extra incentive to vote.

A. Public attitudes toward the scope of government
 
1. The question of government power is a complex one, but it is one of the key controversies in American politics today.
 
a. Public opinions on different aspects of the same issue do not always hold together well: while more people today think the government is too big rather than too small, a plurality has consistently called for spending on programs like education, health care, aid to big cities, protecting the environment, and fighting crime.

b. Many political scientists have looked at these contradictory findings and concluded that Americans are ideological conservatives but operational liberals.
 

(1) Liberals, for example, believe in a strong central government that sets policies to promote equality, and that government should guard carefully the rights of defendants in criminal trials.

(2) Conservatives, for example, favor free market solutions to problems rather than looking to the government for regulating business.
 

2. Political ideologies
 
a. The terms liberal and conservative in the previous paragraph refer to the predominant ideologies in the United States. Anideology is a coherent set of thoughts and beliefs about politics and government. The three most common political ideologies in the United States are:
 
(1) Conservative. Conservatives stress that individuals should be responsible for their own well being, and should not rely on government assistance. They favor free market solutions to problems rather than looking to the government for regulating business. As a result, they tend to oppose government interference in the private sector and favor lower taxes and increased government spending. They also oppose most federal regulations, preferring that the market determine costs and acceptable business practices. Social conservatives, who make up a powerful wing of the conservative movement, support government action on social issues. Most are pro-life and support a ban on abortions, for example. Conservative leader Newt Gingrich once suggested government sponsored orphanages as a remedy for chronic poverty. Extreme conservatives are sometimes referred to as arch-conservative or reactionary.

(2) Liberal. Liberals believe that the government should be used to remedy the social and economic injustices of the marketplace. They tend to support government regulation of the economy. They also support government efforts to redress past social injustices through such programs as affirmative action. Most liberals believe the government should strictly enforce the separation of church and state, and therefore oppose school-sponsored prayer and proposed bans on abortions, which liberals perceive as motivated by religious beliefs. To the left of liberalism is socialism, which promotes government ownership of industry (as opposed to private ownership).

(3) Moderate. Moderates make up the largest portion of the American public. In a 2004 poll, nearly half of all Americans identified themselves as politically moderate. The beliefs of moderates do not constitute a coherent ideology. Instead,moderates view themselves as pragmatists who apply common sense rather than philosophical principles to political problems.
 

B. Democracy, public opinion, and political action
 
1. Americans often take for granted the opportunity to replace our leaders at the next election.

2. Perhaps the best indicator of how well socialized Americans are to democracy is that protest typically is aimed at getting the attention of government, not at overthrowing it.

3. Even if they are only voting according to the nature of the times, voters are clearly being heard, which holds elected officials accountable for their actions.

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Last updated:  August 2005