Deck 8: Public Opinion

Question 1

Who was Alfred Landon?

A) a pollster
B) a college professor who taught public opinion
C) a union activist
D) a presidential candidate
E) a candidate for the US Senate

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Who authored On Liberty?

A) John Stuart Mill
B) William Edwards
C) Roger Smith
D) Tyrone Session
E) Max Weber

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The view that public policy must not be driven by public opinion was held most strongly by

A) James Madison.
B) Plato.
C) John Stuart Mill.
D) Machiavelli.
E) Thomas Jefferson.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Who feared that competing opinions could lead to hostile factions that would divide rather than unify or improve society?

A) Plato
B) Aristotle
C) Socrates
D) James Madison
E) Max Weber

Question 5

Straw polls are of little use because they often fail to obtain

A) legitimacy.
B) a representative sample.
C) validity.
D) a quorum.
E) correct responses.

Question 6

Public opinion polls

A) only came about after 1950.
B) are not important.
C) have always been accurate.
D) have emerged as an integral part of American politics.
E) were present in Greek politics.

Question 7

A representative sample must include

A) a disproportionate number of white males.
B) a disproportionate number of whites.
C) all the significant demographic characteristics of the total population.
D) at least 300 African American males.
E) a collective expression of attitudes.

Question 8

The Literary Digest poll of 1936 overrepresented

A) poor Americans.
B) upper-class Americans.
C) Jewish Americans.
D) Muslim Americans.
E) African Americans

Question 9

George Gallup and Elmo Roper were

A) college professors.
B) national politicians.
C) newspaper editors.
D) professional pollsters.
E) members of the political machine in Chicago.

Question 10

According to your text, a nonrepresentative sample like the infamous Literary Digest poll is

A) amusing.
B) no longer ever to take place.
C) very helpful.
D) worthless.
E) impossible to produce.

Question 11

In a random sample

A) all age groups are taken into account.
B) all ethnic groups are taken into account.
C) every member of the population has an equal chance of appearing in the sample.
D) all religious groups are taken into account.
E) all political groups are taken into account.

Question 12

Pollsters are very careful to avoid

A) a random sample.
B) a totally random sample.
C) sampling bias.
D) margins of error.
E) independent voters.

Question 13

An open-ended question

A) allows respondents to provide any answer to the question.
B) provides the respondent with a set of answers.
C) is more representative than a close-ended question.
D) can never be completely random.
E) should never be used in polls.

Question 14

________________ helps people make sense of the political world and predicts their behavior within it.

A) Partisan identification
B) Telephone polling
C) Public opinion
D) Grassroots activism
E) Family influence

Question 15

_______ polls target voters as they leave the voting booth in an effort to gauge the likely winner of an election before the results are announced.

A) Tracing
B) Tracking
C) Random
D) Telephone
E) Exit

Question 16

The term political socialization refers to

A) how we acquire our political manners.
B) how nice politicians are to one another.
C) the process by which we acquire our political beliefs.
D) the relationships among politics, social skills, and racial tolerance.
E) social events that politicians attend.

Question 17

Political socialization begins

A) in college.
B) in early childhood.
C) in church.
D) when we cast our first vote.
E) at birth.

Question 18

The most likely source of one's partisan identification is

A) one's parents.
B) one's peers.
C) one's spouse.
D) one's American National Government professor.
E) one's clergy person.

Question 19

The __________Generation refers to a cohort of young adults who were born between 1981 and 1994.

A) X
B) Y
C) Z
D) Lost
E) Millennial

Question 20

People in the South

A) tend to support conservative candidates.
B) tend to support very liberal candidates.
C) tend not to participate in politics.
D) tend to be political extremists.
E) tend to support green parties more than other areas.

Question 21

In the United States, people with few religious connections are likely to

A) have very little involvement in politics and voting.
B) favor conservative social and economic policies and to vote Republican.
C) favor liberal social and economic policies and to vote Democratic.
D) favor conservative social policies and liberal economic policies and to vote Libertarian.
E) favor liberal social policies and conservative economic policies.

Question 22

An individual's racial or ethnic background

A) has a strong influence upon his or her political beliefs
B) has no influence upon his or her political beliefs.
C) becomes important only during the primary season.
D) becomes important only when one of the major parties nominates a minority candidate.
E) becomes important only in presidential elections.

Question 23

Americans tend to favor

A) all forms of equality.
B) equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.
C) equality of outcome but not political equality.
D) political equality and equality of opportunity.
E) economic and political equality.

Question 24

Which of the following are considered part of political culture?

A) values
B) political ideology
C) culture
D) lifestyle.
E) all of the above

Question 25

Perhaps the leading American value is

A) patriotism.
B) religion.
C) social consciousness.
D) liberty.
E) justice.

Question 26

Political ideology is

A) a jumbled, mudpuddle of views and opinions about politics.
B) a coherent way of viewing politics and government.
C) irrelevant in politics.
D) more important to women than to men.
E) an inconsistent set of political beliefs.

Question 27

The most common ideologies among politically aware Americans are

A) liberalism and conservatism.
B) socialism and stoicism.
C) socialism and populism.
D) moderation and patience.
E) libertarianism and populism.

Question 28

Democrats are more likely to oppose

A) minimum wage laws.
B) actions that restrict cultural freedoms
C) universal health care.
D) the minimization of economic inequality,.
E) none of the above.

Question 29

The concepts of spiral of silence and spiral of intolerance are indications that

A) bigots are prohibited by law from expressing their views.
B) public opinion has become a form of social control.
C) racists become even more so as they age.
D) most Americans are afraid to confront those with intolerant views.
E) one has a well developed party identification.

Question 30

Who is responsible for the following quote: "the average American does not know for certain what is going on, or who is doing it, or where he is being carried . . . . He lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct."

A) Max Weber
B) Joseph Shumpeter
C) Robert Powerll
D) Walter Lippman
E) Anderson Cooper

Question 31

A schema is

A) a breakdown of the federal bureaucracy.
B) an intellectual framework for evaluating the world.
C) a plan for proportional representation in Congress.
D) an organizational framework for the appellate court circuit.
E) an organization plan that is used by Congress.

Question 32

A broad base change in party identification is known as

A) dealignment.
B) revolution.
C) realignment.
D) misalignment.
E) restructuring.

Question 33

Which of the following public opinion terms refers to the extent to which people see an issue as having a clear impact on their own lives?

A) salience
B) intensity
C) latency
D) schemas
E) realignment

Question 34

Citizens who felt that the COVID-19 pandemic was salient, felt that it:

A) Should have been included in more public opinion polls
B) Had a clear impact on their lives.
C) Did not have a clear impact on their lives.
D) Was a hoax
E) God's will

Question 35

Public opinion is the keystone of democracy.

Question 36

John Stuart Mill advocated that public opinion should be controlled.

Question 37

Public opinion is defined as the collective expression of attitudes about prominent issues and actors of the day.

Question 38

A major mistake by the Literary Digest in 1936 signaled the beginning of a new era in how polling is done.

Question 39

Plato saw public opinion as a danger if it meant the mass of citizens could freely express individual desires.

Question 40

John Stuart Mill agreed with Plato.

Question 41

James Madison took a middle stance between Plato and Mill.

Question 42

The Literary Digest predicted that Franklin Roosevelt would defeat his opponent in the 1936 presidential election.

Question 43

The Literary Digest worked with an unbiased sample.

Question 44

Although the notion of public opinion has been with us for centuries, we have only recently developed reliable ways to measure it.

Question 45

George Gallup and Elmo Roper helped meet the growing demand for information about public attitudes.

Question 46

Most pollsters do not produce results of high reliability.

Question 47

Public opinion polls have emerged as an integral part of American politics.

Question 48

Early on election night 2000, the television networks, basing their announcement on exit polling in Florida, correctly projected George W. Bush as winning the election.

Question 49

The 2004 presidential election went very well for exit polling.

Question 50

About the age of five, children begin to form their worldview.

Question 51

Because many variables affect American political attitudes, it is difficult to trace the precise effects of family on the political opinions of adult Americans.

Question 52

Partisan identification helps people make sense of the political world and predicts their behavior within it.

Question 53

Most generations simply mimic their parents' views.

Question 54

University training has very little effect in the process of socialization.

Question 55

A child's peers make up an important source of political socialization.

Question 56

Perhaps more than anything else in American culture, television has emerged to dominate the social and political landscape.

Question 57

Most people watch television for educational purposes.

Question 58

As a general rule, the less money one makes, the more inclined one is to favor liberal economic policies that provide benefits to the poor.

Question 59

Income level strongly influences voting patterns in the United States.

Question 60

Racial and ethnic background has little effect on the attitudes a person is likely to develop.

Question 61

A nation's political culture is the set of beliefs held by a few that many are trying to attain.

Question 62

Generally, the more religious one is the more liberal one is likely to be.

Question 63

The South has always been America's most conservative region.

Question 64

Intolerance is not a serious problem in the United States.

Question 65

The American political culture is shaped by only one core value.

Question 66

At the deepest level, American values are remarkably homogeneous.

Question 67

Perhaps the leading American value is religion.

Question 68

Most Americans view themselves as liberals.

Question 69

Public opinion is fundamentally changing in support of Black Lives Matter and politicians who had previously dismissed the role of systemic racism in the criminal justice system now agree that Blacks have different experiences with law enforcement than do Whites.

Question 70

Increased support among white voters for Black Lives Matter is an example of a shift in racial attitudes in America?

Question 71

Given similar social views within the Latinx community, pollsters can easily and accurately determine how Latinx voters will vote.

Question 72

One technique pollsters use to achieve a more accurate sample is to use bilingual interviewers when conducting polls?

Question 73

America is unique in the world in that its citizens have different and conflicting attitudes about immigration.

Question 74

Generally, men are registering more with the Democratic Party, and women are registering more as Independents.

Question 75

What is the history of thought regarding the role of public opinion in democratic policy making?

Question 76

How can public opinion be measured?

Question 77

Discuss the importance of public opinion polls.

Question 78

Discuss how a person develops his or her ideas about politics?

Question 79

Comment on various social variables that influence opinion formation.

Question 80

What positions do Americans take on core issues and ideals?