Exam 9: Public Opinion

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

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.

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.

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?

A "push poll" is ________.

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

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 ________.

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

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 ________.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

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?

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 ________.

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

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

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