PSC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Gm Family Ii Engine
11 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Public Opinion
A. The Power of Public Opinion
a. Public opinion is a valuable commodity in the American political
system.
b. Public opinion influences Congressional votes
c. Public opinion is crucial for Presidents seeking support from Congress
d. Public opinion affects reelection prospects
e. Even courts rely on public opinion to establish legitimacy and ensure
compliance by the other branches
B. What is Public Opinion?
a. Citizens’ attitudes about political issues, leaders, institutions, and
events
b. May be understood on two levels:
i. Individual: what one person thinks about issues, leaders,
institutions, and events
ii. Aggregate: the accumulation of these individual beliefs as
expressed in polls, votes, town meetings, protests, etc.
C. How Do we Measure Public Opinion?
a. Public Opinion Polls
i. Measurement tool to tell us how a population thinks and feels
about a given topic
ii. Conducted by independent, unbiased sources
iii. Sample of the population are surveyed to estimate the opinions
of the entire population
iv. Participants must be chosen randomly
D. Aggregate Public Opinion
a. Aggregate public opinion best approximates the opinions of a majority
of Americans.
b. Americans do hold common opinions on some issues, like equality of
opportunity, but on most of them, the public does not hold a single
view.
E. What we can learn from public opinion:
a. Evaluations of individuals and institutions
b. Assessments of public policies
c. Evaluations of Political Leaders
F. Opinion on Public Policies
a. Self-Interest: Government policies directly affect our financial well-
being, the quality of public services, and public safety.
b. Values: Many opinions are rooted in our philosophies about morality,
justice, and ethics. Values can often conflict with one another.
c. Social Groups: Our family, neighborhood, language, race, and
religion also have an impact on our preferences.
G. Political Socialization
a. A process through which individuals assimilate community
preferences and norms through social interactions
b. Important sources of political socialization:
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