Deck 5: Public Opinion and Political Socialization

Question 1

When did survey methodology become a powerful research tool?

A) 1930s
B) 1950s
C) 1970s
D) 1980s
E) 1990s

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Some historians estimate that what percentage of Americans opposed the Revolution in July 1776?

A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 40%
E) 45%

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The framers wanted to build public opinion into our government structure by creating which of the following?

A) The office of the president
B) The Supreme Court
C) The U.S. Senate
D) The House of Representatives
E) Federalism

Answer 3

D

Question 4

According to the text, which of the following is not a characteristic of public opinion?

A) Governments tend to respond to public opinion.
B) Citizens are typically unwilling to offer opinions on matters outside their experience, even when asked by pollsters.
C) The government sometimes does not do what people want.
D) Public opinion places boundaries on allowable types of public policy.
E) The public's attitude toward a given government policy can vary dramatically over time.

Question 5

Which of the following refers to the principle of randomness in public opinion polling?

A) Every individual sampled decreases the risk of bias error.
B) Every individual can choose to participate or decline participation in the opinion poll.
C) Every individual in the population is sampled.
D) Every individual has a known and equal chance of being sampled.
E) Every individual sampled has a unique perspective on the issues.

Question 6

Which of the following is the most important principle in sampling?

A) The sample size
B) Randomness
C) Integrity of the pollster
D) Prior experience
E) Population characteristics

Question 7

Which of the following refers to a challenging issue in the science of research polling?

A) The decline in importance of political polling
B) The lack of scientific research at the university level
C) The relatively low cost of Internet polling
D) The growth of the Hispanic population
E) The growth of cell phones

Question 8

The collective attitude of the citizens on a given issue is known as what?

A) Public opinion
B) Gerrymandering
C) Public discord
D) Incumbency
E) Political reform

Question 9

Why do cell phones present a problem for pollsters?

A) It is impossible to randomly select cell phone numbers.
B) Cell phone companies charge pollsters to make calls.
C) Cell phone owners increasingly do not have landlines.
D) Cell phones are more common among older Americans.
E) Most cell phone users have a landline, thus resulting in being "double polled."

Question 10

In polling, the difference between the sample's results and those that would have been obtained had the entire population been interviewed is known as which of the following?

A) A failure of randomness
B) A sampling error
C) Unlikely to happen at all
D) Likely to be very large
E) A statistical miscalculation

Question 11

Which of the following is a critique that pluralists make of the public as a whole?

A) Subgroups within the public do not express opinions on specific matters.
B) The public simplifies complex issues into too-neat, easy solutions.
C) The public tends to overwhelmingly focus on a handful of policy issues and ignore the rest.
D) The public seldom demonstrates clear, consistent opinions on daily issues of government.
E) Public opinion has moved increasingly against minority rights in recent decades.

Question 12

The best example of the generational effect is which of the following?

A) Individuals who are in their early twenties tend to have a more liberal attitude toward social issues.
B) Candidate Hillary Clinton received significant support from women in the 2016 presidential campaign.
C) Many individuals remember where they were the night Barack Obama was first elected.
D) Individuals who came of age during the Watergate scandal have a cynical attitude toward government.
E) Individuals with a high economic status tend to be more politically involved.

Question 13

A January 2014 poll showed that what percent of Americans knew that the Affordable Care Act prohibits companies from denying health insurance to people because of any illnesses they may have?

A) 54%
B) 34%
C) 74%
D) 14%
E) 94%

Question 14

What percentage of whites report being satisfied with society's treatment of blacks?

A) 20%
B) 28%
C) 39%
D) 41%
E) 67%

Question 15

When was modern polling developed?

A) In the 1890s by Literary Digest
B) In the 1930s by George Gallup
C) In the 1940s at Harvard University
D) In the 1960s at the Census Bureau
E) In the 1970s by Zogby and Nielsen

Question 16

Which of the following statements best supports the majoritarian point of view with regard to public opinion and public policy?

A) Public policy should be made without regard to public opinion.
B) Public policy should reflect the will of the public conveyed through the free expression of the views of many different groups.
C) Public policy should reflect the views of the dominant group event if it is not a majority.
D) Public policy should reflect majority views as much as possible.
E) Public policy should reflect the will of government officials.

Question 17

Which of the following statements best supports the pluralist point of view with regard to public opinion and public policy?

A) Public policy should reflect the will of the majority.
B) Public policy should reflect the will of the public conveyed through the free expression of the views of many different groups.
C) Public policy should reflect the views of the dominant group event if it is not a majority.
D) Public policy should reflect the will of government officials.
E) Public policy should be made without regard to public opinion.

Question 18

To accurately represent the target population, a small sample should be which of the following?

A) Randomly selected
B) Representative of the whole group
C) Representative in terms of demographic traits (age, region, religion, race, etc.)
D) Representative in terms of opinions
E) All of these are correct.

Question 19

Which of the following statements reflects the role public opinion should play according to the majoritarian model of democracy?

A) Public opinion should play a much smaller role than it would play in the pluralist model.
B) Groups with different opinions should be allowed to clash openly over government policy.
C) Public opinion is less important than the opinions of experts.
D) Government should do what a majority of the public wants.
E) A majority of the public is ill informed on the issues, which means the role of public opinion should be increased.

Question 20

Today, how are most polls conducted?

A) Face-to-face interviews
B) The telephone
C) Mail surveys
D) Radio broadcasts
E) Straw voting

Question 21

Which of the following are the major agents of early socialization in the United States?

A) Religion and social class
B) Family, religion, and political party
C) Family, school, community, and peers
D) School and social class
E) Economics, television, and the Internet

Question 22

Which of the following best describes the transfer of political attitudes and beliefs?

A) It is more likely to occur from children to parents.
B) It is more likely to occur from parents to children.
C) It is just as likely to occur from children to parents as it is to occur from parents to children.
D) It is exceptionally rare in families.
E) It never occurs from children to parents.

Question 23

The process whereby one becomes aware of politics, learns political facts, and forms political values is called what?

A) Political indoctrination
B) Ideological awakening
C) Political ideology
D) Political socialization
E) Systems building

Question 24

Which of the following describes the gender gap?

A) It is the difference in voter turnout among men and women.
B) It is the long-standing history of women favoring Republicans over Democrats.
C) It is the tendency of women to be more conservative than men.
D) It is the tendency of women to be more libertarian than men.
E) It is the difference in the percentage of women voting for a certain candidate and the percentage of men doing the same.

Question 25

Which of the following statements concerning gender and political beliefs is incorrect?

A) Women are more likely to favor government action to promote equality.
B) Women are more likely to favor affirmative action.
C) Men are less likely to favor increased spending on social programs.
D) Men are more likely to favor the death penalty.
E) Women are more likely to favor the death penalty.

Question 26

The difference between the percentage of women who vote for a particular candidate and the percentage of men who vote for that candidate is called which of the following?

A) The gender gap
B) The generational effect
C) The gendered opinion
D) The lifestyle effect
E) The sexist gap

Question 27

A sample of 1,000 randomly selected individuals is usually accurate to (plus or minus) how many percentage points?

A) Three
B) Five
C) Seven
D) Nine
E) Eleven

Question 28

Which of the following statements regarding political socialization is true?

A) Parents disaffected from the political system are more likely to provide political information to their children than parents who are not similarly disaffected.
B) Although more sources of political information have become readily available in recent decades to most Americans, these sources are not as readily available to most young people.
C) Sources of information about politics have been steadily decreasing in the United States for decades.
D) The family has become the only meaningful source of political socialization in the United States.
E) Scholars believe that greater access to political information may explain why young Americans are more liberal than their parents on many social issues.

Question 29

Why are Internet polls not necessarily accurate?

A) Most women are not on the Internet.
B) Most men are not on the Internet.
C) Most African Americans are not on the Internet.
D) They lack a random sample.
E) It is impossible to weight the sample.

Question 30

Which of the following are the most important early sources of political socialization?

A) Family and the media
B) Schools and the media
C) Family and political parties
D) Family and schools
E) Political parties and schools

Question 31

Which of the following best describes the views of African Americans on issues of social welfare, civil liberties, and foreign policy?

A) They are more likely to be Republican than whites.
B) They are more liberal than whites.
C) They are more likely to be politically neutral.
D) They are more conservative than whites.
E) They are more apolitical than whites.

Question 32

Which of the following best describes the transfer of political values?

A) Is most likely to occur through the media
B) Is more likely to occur from families to children
C) Is more likely that children will influence their parents
D) Is exceptionally rare in families
E) Only occurs in small families

Question 33

Jewish voters tend to do which of the following?

A) Vote for candidates who are politically conservative
B) Vote at a lower rate than Protestants
C) Focus almost totally on domestic issues
D) Have more liberal views than average on economic and cultural issues
E) Have similar views to the overall population on political issues

Question 34

American women are more likely to support which of the following?

A) Capital punishment
B) Restrictions on access to abortions
C) Social welfare programs
D) Military interventions abroad
E) Legislation restricting the rights of homosexuals

Question 35

What is the set of values and beliefs that a person holds about the purpose and scope of government called?

A) Political ideology
B) Party identification
C) Liberalism or conservatism
D) Political socialization
E) Communalism

Question 36

Which of the following is the first agent of political socialization for most people?

A) Family
B) Their peers
C) School
D) Television
E) The Internet

Question 37

The process by which people acquire political beliefs and attitudes is called what?

A) Opinion leadership
B) Political socialization
C) Agenda setting
D) Peer grouping
E) Consensus building

Question 38

Which of the following best describes the influence of parents over their children's political socialization?

A) Only occurs in strongly political families
B) Is due to the declining influence of schools and the media
C) Is due to the rise of homeschooling
D) Is because of children seeing parents as an authority on politics
E) Is due to constant communication and receptivity of children to their parents' views

Question 39

Which of the following describes an individual's status that is based on a combination of education, occupational status, and income?

A) Bimodal
B) Partisan
C) Political
D) Skewed
E) Socioeconomic

Question 40

The contemporary political "gender gap" refers to the tendency of women to do which of the following?

A) Identify more with the Democratic Party than men do
B) Vote less than men do
C) Favor female candidates for office over male candidates
D) Pay less attention to politics than men do
E) Vote more for Republican candidates than men do

Question 41

In the current American context, a communitarian would tend to promote which of the following?

A) Both order and equality over freedom
B) Order over freedom and freedom over equality
C) Freedom over both order and equality
D) Equality over freedom and freedom over order
E) Liberty and equality over fairness

Question 42

Lack of political knowledge among individual Americans makes which of the following models of democracy more difficult to sustain?

A) Communitarian
B) Pluralist
C) Majoritarian
D) Substantive
E) Procedural

Question 43

Which of the following is true of people who adhere to the self-interest principle?

A) They tend to choose what benefits them personally.
B) They have only a vague notion of how political ideology impacts policy outcomes.
C) They misunderstand costs and benefits of different policies.
D) They are inflexible in their ideology.
E) They select policy options based on their perception of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Question 44

Identify and discuss the factors that can cause poll results to be wrong.

Question 45

In the current American context, a liberal would tend to promote which of the following?

A) Economic equality ahead of freedom, and freedom ahead of social order
B) Freedom ahead of economic equality, and social order ahead of freedom
C) Freedom ahead of both economic equality and social order
D) Both economic equality and social order ahead of freedom
E) Business and government policy ahead of social order

Question 46

Why is a random sample important in polling?

Question 47

Analyze the role that public opinion plays in the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

Question 48

When a political opinion is based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the nation rather than what people think is in their own interest, this is an example of which of the following?

A) Communitarianism
B) Gerrymandering
C) Sociotropic responses
D) Substantive recall
E) Procedural process

Question 49

Which of the following groups is most likely to identify as libertarian?

A) Poor
B) Southerners
C) Uneducated
D) Nonreligious
E) African Americans

Question 50

Which of the following best describes an opinion leader?

A) One who is able to influence the opinions of others because of position, expertise, or personality
B) A pollster
C) Always someone whose job is to sway public opinion, such as a member of Congress
D) A public relations expert
E) Someone who relies on position or expertise, rather than something like personality

Question 51

Discuss three factors that might distort public opinion results collected through opinion polling.

Question 52

The fact that ideological conservatives believed even more strongly that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 war after they were informed that subsequent investigations concluded that this was not true is an example of which of the following?

A) Backfire effect
B) Fog of war
C) Misinformation effect
D) Crowd delusion syndrome
E) Willfulness effect

Question 53

What challenges are associated with accurate public opinion polling, and how can these challenges be overcome?

Question 54

Discuss how assessing public opinion has changed since the 1930s.

Question 55

Evaluate the extent to which modern polling techniques best facilitate majoritarian democracy and pluralist democracy.

Question 56

African Americans and Asians are more likely than whites to have which of the following policy preferences on abortion?

A) Conservative
B) Moderate
C) Liberal
D) Restrictive
E) Uncertain

Question 57

A voter who is uninformed about the issues might rely on political party labels to make a decision. This type of mental shortcut that requires hardly any information is called which of the following?

A) Backfiring
B) Gerrymandering
C) Heuristics
D) Communitarianism
E) Issue framing

Question 58

A libertarian is most likely to exhibit which of the following characteristics?

A) Low education and high income
B) Low education and low income
C) Low income and high education
D) High income and high education
E) Moderate education and moderate income

Question 59

If a senatorial candidate talks about reducing taxes as a way to "return money to the people", that candidate is using which of the following as a way to define the topic of taxes?

A) Issue framing
B) Gerrymandering
C) Demagogue
D) Ideology
E) Majoritarianism

Question 60

Which of the following statements concerning ideological "moderates" is correct?

A) Moderates tend to be politically ill informed.
B) Moderates tend to have higher than average incomes and education.
C) Moderates are as likely as liberals and conservatives to correctly identify ideologies.
D) Many people identify as "moderate" because they do not understand the alternatives.
E) Fewer Americans identify as "moderate" than as liberal or conservative, and moderates tend to have higher than average incomes and education.

Question 61

Discuss the factors that impact the formulation of a person's ideology.

Question 62

Analyze the earliest sources of political socialization and another source that grows in importance as Americans reach adulthood.

Question 63

Explain the principle of randomness in polling, and connect this principle to at least one other technique or problem in polling.

Question 64

Explain why political scientists do not believe that public opinion can adequately be described on the conventional left-right spectrum.

Question 65

Discuss the impact of political leadership on public opinion.

Question 66

How do race and ethnicity play a major role in shaping political beliefs and public opinion? Support your response with specific examples.

Question 67

Regarding public opinion, what is meant by the gender gap?

Question 68

Analyze the ideological distribution of the American public.

Question 69

Discuss the "backfire effect" as it relates to public opinion.

Question 70

Evaluate the extent to which an individual's political opinions are shaped by self-interest.

Question 71

How does socialization affect partisanship, ideology, and public opinion?

Question 72

Describe two of the earliest sources of political socialization and another source that grows in importance as Americans reach adulthood.

Question 73

Describe how political opinions are formed, and mention at least three major influencers.

Question 74

How is gender related to political beliefs and opinion?

Question 75

Evaluate the degree to which public opinion reflects ideological thinking.

Question 76

Evaluate the extent to which geographic regions are related to Americans' political beliefs.

Question 77

Analyze how education is related to attitudes toward social order and economic freedom.

Question 78

Evaluate the extent to which Americans have adequate information upon which to base political opinions and actions.

Question 79

Discuss why simply being able to recall an official's name may not be the best measure of a person's level of political knowledge.

Question 80

Discuss the quality of ideological thinking in the American public.