Chapter 11: Political Socialization and Public Opinion

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Chapter 11: Political Socialization and Public Opinion

Political socialization—the process through which individuals acquire their political beliefs and values.

I Roots of Political Values: Political Socialization

1. Political Socialization; we learn values through family school peers and the mass media.

2. Other factors include religious beliefs, race and ethnicity, gender, age, the region of the country in which you live, political events and even your own political knowledge.

A The Family

1. The influence of the family on political socialization can be traced to two factors: communication and receptivity.

B School and Peers

1. In elementary school, students are taught respect for nation.

2. Support for flag and country create a foundation for national allegiance that prevails despite the negative views about politicians and government institutions that many American develop later in life.

3. A child’s peers also have an important affect of the socialization process.

4. A child’s peer group is very important especially as he enters middle or high school.

5. Better informed citizens vote more often as adults.

6. Colleges have a liberalizing affect on students.

C The Mass Media

1. The mass media are taking on a growing role as socialization agents.

2. Television has a tremendous impact on how people view politics, government, and politicians.

3. Discuss MTV and Rock the Vote.

4. Since the 2004 presidential election, major party candidates have used another form of media to sway and inform voters: the Internet

a. Ex. Obama campaign and Facebook

D Religious Beliefs

1. View Chart p. 385

E Race and Ethnicity

1. Another factor is their race or ethnicity.

2. These are key factors in elections and in the study of public opinion.

3. See chart p. 385

F Gender

1. Women hold very different opinions than man on a variety of issues.

2. Women have held more liberal attitudes about social welfare issues such as education, juvenile justice, capital punishment, and the environment.

3. Women also hold more negative views about war and military intervention.

G Age

1. Our view on the proper role of government depends on the era in which we were born and our individual experiences with a variety of social, political, and economic forces.

H Religion

1. Regional and Sectional differences have been important factors in the development and maintenance of political beliefs since colonial times.

2. One of the long-standing differences is that between the North and the South.

3. The South is more religious as well as more Protestant.

I The Impact of Events

II Public Opinion and Polling

1. Public Opinion—What the public thinks about a particular issue or set of issues at any point in time.

2. Public opinion polls—interviews or surveys with samples of citizens that are used to estimate the feelings and beliefs of the entire population.

3. George Gallup is considered the founder of modern day polling.

4. Leaders must always take public opinion into account.

5. Discuss elitism v. pluralism

A The History of Public Opinion Research

1. Straw polls—unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues and policies.

2. Sample—a subset of the whole population selected to be questioned for the purposes of prediction or gauging opinion.

B Traditional Public Opinion Polls

1. Polls have several key phases

a. Determining the content and phrasing the questions

b. Selecting the sample

c. Contacting respondents

Determining the Content and Phrasing the Questions

Selecting the Sample

1. Random sampling—a method of poll selection that gives each person in a group the same chance of being selected.

2. Stratified sampling—a variation of random sampling; census data are used to divide the country into four sampling regions. Sets of counties and standard metropolitan statistical areas are then randomly selected in proportion to the total national population.

Contacting Respondents

C Political Polls

Push polls—polls taken for the purpose of providing information on an opponent that would lead respondents to vote against the candidate.

Tracking Polls—continuous surveys that enable a campaign to chart its daily rise or fall in support.

Exit polls—polls conducted as voters leave selected polling places on Election Day.

D Shortcomings of Polling

Margin of Error

1. Margin of error—a measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll.

Sampling Error

1. The accuracy of any poll depends on the quality of the sample that was drawn

Limited Response Options

1. Polls can be inaccurate when they limit response options.

Lack of Information

1. Public opinion polls may also be inaccurate when they attempt to gauge attitudes about issues that some or even many individuals do not care about or about which the public has little information.

Difficulty Measuring intensity

1. Another shortcoming of polls concerns their inability to measure intensity of feeling about particular issues.

III Why We Form and Express Political Opinions

1. Our sentiments in public opinion polls can be traced to our political socialization

2. People are also influenced by a number of other factors:

a. Personal benefits

b. Political knowledge

c. Cues form various leaders or opinion makers and

d. Their political ideology

A Personal Benefits

1. Most polls reveal that Americans are growing more and more “I” centered.

2. This leads people to agree with policies that will benefit them personally.

3. Ex People vote with their pocketbooks.

4. When we are faced with policies that don’t affect us personally and don’t involve moral issues, we often have a hard time forming an opinion. This is especially true in areas of foreign policy.

B Political Knowledge

1. Political knowledge and political participation have a reciprocal effect on one another—an increase in one will increase the other.

C Cues from Leaders or Opinion Makers

1. The ebb and flow of popular opinion can be affected dramatically (some cynics say manipulated) by political leaders.

2. Ex. Pres. Bush appealing to the public about the Wars in Afghanistan and the privatization of social security.

D Political Ideology

1. Political ideology—the coherent set of values and beliefs about the purpose and scope of government held by groups and individuals.

2. Most talk is related to liberal moderate and conservative ideologies.

IV Toward Reform: The Effects of Public Opinion on Government and Politics

1. “All government rests on public opinion.”

2. Polls can clearly distort the election process by creating what are called bandwagon and underdog effects.

Key Terms:

Exit polls, margin of error, political ideology, political socialization, public opinion, public opinion polls, push polls, random sampling, sample, stratified sampling, straw polls, tracking polls.