GVPT 170 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Wmur-Tv
18 Mar 2016
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Rely on others in group as a source of opinion. Who you are talking to might sway your opinions. Previous generations of political scientists argued that public opinion is generally: Based on findings that people have very little factual information about politics. People respond to questions on issues that they haven"t thought about or don"t know about. Issue publics: people are only informed on some issues. Latent opinions: people form opinions on the spot. Heuristics: people use shortcuts instead of complete information. Definition of ideology: systems of belief in which one more general organizing principles connect your views on a wide range of particular issues . Most commonly think about a position on the spectrum running from liberal to moderate to conservative. Tends to be more constant over one"s lifetime. In the 1950s & 60s scholars found public opinion wasn"t very ideological but this is less true today.
