Exam 10: Public Opinion and Political Socialization

What type of research error would you expect from a public opinion poll about support for women in combat roles that sought responses only from female college students who described themselves as feminists?

In July 2012,CNN conducted an online poll asking visitors to its Web site to offer their opinions about the appropriate punishment for a well-known celebrity who had violated the terms of her probation.Like the 1936 Literary Digest straw poll,this poll violated a well-known cardinal rule of survey sampling by allowing for __________.

Which of the following statements about the 1936 Literary Digest poll that predicted Roosevelt's reelection defeat is true?

What opinion of a Democratic president would you expect an eleven-year-old child raised in a politically active Republican household to have?

How does the president attempt to mold public opinion?

What is the most frequently used polling mechanism by which the mood of the electorate is gauged? Name two problems associated with it.

Since the 1930s,governmental decision makers have relied heavily on public opinion polls.

The __________,a popular magazine that first began national presidential polling in 1916,was a pioneer in the use of the straw poll.

What is the relationship between partisanship and views on whether the government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep?

According to Andrew Kohut,founding director of the Pew Research Center,why has the public played a more important role in national and international politics over the last three decades?

What kind of demographic voting blocs would you expect to emerge in elections about delayed eligibility for Social Security retirement benefits and in elections to increase taxes to fund cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients? Why?

Simple random samples are not very useful for predicting voting outcomes because they may undersample or oversample key populations not likely to vote.

In what ways are those who answer mail or Internet surveys different from the general electorate?

How knowledgeable are Americans about politics? What sorts of questions might a public opinion survey include to ascertain political knowledge? Provide two or three examples.

The Federalist Papers note that "all government rests on public opinion."

Why did the Framers provide for the selection of senators by state legislatures? What electoral reform did the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S.Constitution bring about? As a result of its adoption,do you think U.S.senators are more or less likely to closely monitor their constituents' opinions on a range of political issues?

In a random sample of 1,000 high school students,29 percent indicated that they had read the Declaration of Independence at least once,with a margin of error of 4 percent.Which of the following statements is true?

What is the purpose of a "name recognition survey"?

Describe how public opinion about whether the government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep varies by gender,race,age,party,and religion.How would you explain these differences in political attitudes?

A decrease in political knowledge will likely cause __________.