10 22 Public Opinion-How Do People Form Opinions PDF

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Public Opinion: How Do People Form Opinions? I.

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Public Opinion Formation A. People pay only modest attention to politics, even now. B. Key influences on American public opinion have long been based on values and groups. Values A. It is much more common for people to share their political values and orientations with their families. B. This is largely a function of an absolutist (conservative) versus contextualist (liberal) worldviews passed down by your parents/relatives. C. Political values are inherent but also a product of socialization (a process of assimilating preferences and norms). Groups A. Social psychology shows us that people inevitably divide the world into us versus them (ingroups vs. outgroups). 1. Prisoners vs. Guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment a) A social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. b) In the study, volunteers were assigned to be either "guards" or "prisoners" by the flip of a coin, in a mock prison, with Zimbardo himself serving as the superintendent. c) Early reports on experimental results claimed that students quickly embraced their assigned roles, with some guards enforcing authoritarian measures and ultimately subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture, while many prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, by the officers' request, actively harassed other prisoners who tried to stop it. 2. Minimal Group Paradigm a) A social psychology research methodology that proposes that the minimal condition for group biases (like favoritism towards your own group and prejudice towards other groups) is simply being a member of a group. B. This has a prominent effect on public opinion and election outcomes― people want their group to win. 1. Only vote for a possible winner. 2. Once a politician is in office, voters let them get away with a lot in the name of partisanship. Basic Principles of Public Opinion A. People pay only modest attention to politics.

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B. Key influences on American public opinion have long been based on values and groups. 1. Race, gender, age, income, education, religion, union membership 2. Today, these influences are receding. C. The largest influence comes from partisanship. 1. Affective polarization― not just differences in policies; Americans report more dislike and negative feelings towards voters of the other party. 2. Polarization is not just in Congress, but in the public too. So What Does This Mean for Public Opinion? A. Public Opinion is defined as the political views of the voting population. 1. It has meaning and is based on things like values, identities, and preferences that are expressed by the public. 2. It can be measured scientifically― but this is a tricky and potentially inaccurate process. B. Polling, despite its flaws, plays an indispensable role in democracy. 1. Politicians focus campaigns on what the people want ( we are the principles, and elected officials are the agents). 2. Rationality principle C. Yet, since 2016, many have lost trust in polling. For the rest of this class, we will discuss why, and if we should be concerned about polling in 2020. 2016 Gave People Trust Issues

A. 2016 and Beyond: Confidence in Polling Data 1. Some questions every Political Scientist has been asked since the 2016 election are: a) Why were the polls “wrong” in 2016? (1) In the 2016 election, most pollsters (wrongly) predicted Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would win. There are a couple of reasons why this occurred, and why it is

(hopefully) unlikely to occur this year. (a) Inaccurate weighting (i) Many polls weighted younger voters more than they should have and did not apply proper weights to education. (a) Youths vote less than any other demographic. (b) Voters with a college degree are much more likely to answer phone surveys → adjusting based on this discrepancy shifted all polls 4% toward Trump. (ii) Aggregate polls always have a slight bias, which can be hard to predict and fix. (a) Ex: Rasmussen polls/push polls (b) Too much emphasis placed on national polls, rather than state and district polling. (i) Rustbelt states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan showed signs that typically Democratic working-class voters were shifting Republican. (ii) Pollsters did not break down polls by demographics as much as they should have. In 2020, this certainly not the case. (a) Ex: Union workers in the rustbelt. (iii) 20% of the country was undecided, or said they were voting 3rd party in 2016― and most of these voters voted for Trump. (a) In 2020, less than half that percentage are undecided. (c) People lie― social desirability and the Bradley effect. (i) Social Desirability Bias: (a) When respondents choose responses they believe are more socially desirable or acceptable. (b) In other words, they said they would vote for Clinton rather than Trump. Or they said they were Independent rather than choosing a party. Or

they claimed to be undecided. (ii) Bradley effect: (a) Social desirability in action. (b) Some white voters won’t admit they are voting for the white candidate over the non-white candidate. (i) Named after Tom Bradley, an African-American LA mayor who lost the governor’s race in 1982 despite being ahead in the polls. (d) They were within the margin of error. (i) The polls weren’t actually that far off-base. (2) Competitive races cause problems with polling (a) As previously mentioned, many demographics switched parties in a subtle way in 2016. (b) States that were previously Democratic became too close to call. (c) Competitive races are within the margin of error― the pollsters were simply too quick to predict a state would be blue. The state was instead too close to call. b) Can we trust public opinion polls? (1) Polling in 2020 (a) The process is still scientific and is thus not perfect. (b) But: pollsters have made an effort to fix problems (c) Read this: (i) https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/thepolls-are-all-right/ (d) Some websites such as the Cook Political Report are much more conservative in changing ratings― moving a state or district race from blue to red and vice versa. Cook also has a new feature that highlights demographic changes. (i) Here are some helpful links: (a) https://cookpolitical.com/sites/def ault/files/2020-09/EC %20Ratings.092920.2.pdf

(b) https://cookpolitical.com/swingom eter VII.

Bottom Line A. Should we be concerned about polling in 2020? Yes and no. 1. Yes: a) People still lie, there is still a margin of error, and this race is very close in many states. 2. No: a) Those who lied last time are now in the majority― no motivation to lie about preferences. b) Weighting has been adjusted. c) Most importantly: less undecided voters (only about 5%) 3. Polling is important― it shapes campaigns and allows our voices to be heard. It also shows us that we are more divided than ever....