Chapter 6

A member of Congress who wants to act on hat the majority of his or her constituency thinks on a particular issue would be advised to respond to which of the following indicators

A poll based on a random sample of constituents

Sources of polling error can include

Question order b. Unrepresentative samples c. Respondents' lack of knowledge or interest in the issue d. Question wording E. All of these answers are correct

To accurately poll the citizens of the United States as opposed to the citizens of a single state,

A much larger sample size will be required

Friedrich Engels believed that communism would not take root in the United States because

American workers lacked sufficient class consciousness

Party Identification refers to

An emotional attachment to a political party

A general belief about the role and purpose of government is called

An ideology

Which of the following would NOT be considered a secondary socializing agent?

Church

Which of the following statements about party identification is true?

Currently, more people identify as Democrats than as Republicans

Currently, the greatest percentage of Americans identify as

Democrats

Journalist Walter Lippmann suggested that

Effective government cannot be run by politicians that base their public opinions on poll results

Students are MOST likely to hear stories about America's heroes and greatness when they are in

Elementary school

Which of the following groups in the U.S. shows a higher level of support for collective bargaining?

Factory workers

The accuracy of polling is diminished when respondents

Give what they regard as the socially correct response

Libertarians are opposed to governmental intervention

In both the economic and social spheres

A conservative is opposed to government intervention

In the economic but not the social sphere

The term public opinion is frequently used in reference to all of American society. This perspective is

Less accurate than the idea that Americans form many publics, which differ greatly in such things as the level of attention they pay to politics

Historically, dramatic change in party identification is uncommon and is almost always a consequence of

Major upheaval

Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann's "spiral of silence" theory contends that

Most individuals are reluctant to speak out against the dominant opinion

What term do scholars use for a purposed opinion offered by a respondent who is unfamiliar with the specific issue?

Non-opinion

The process of political socialization in the United States is

Normally cumulative; political beliefs attained earlier in life tend to be retained to a substantial degree

Which of the following is true of the relationship between public opinion and shifts in major government policies?

On high-profile issues particularly, public opinion tends to affect policy to a greater degree than policymakers' agendas affect public opinion

Which of the following statements about Americans and ideology and political thinking is true?

Only a minority of Americans can be classified as true ideologues

Selective perception is primarily a result of

Partisanship

As an agent of political socialization, the American family has its greatest effect on individuals'

Party identification

Which of the following is NOT a primary socializing agent?

Peers

The process by which individuals acquire their political opinions is called

Political socialization

What are the two distinguishing characteristics of political socialization?

Political socialization is cumulative, and it is most heavily developed during childhood

Which of the following is true about public opinion polling?

Polls are the most relied-upon method of measuring public opinion

A person who favors government intervention in both social and economic affairs is

Populist

In terms of party identification, about two-thirds of adults call themselves

Republicans or Democrats

The accuracy of a poll is usually expressed in terms of

Sampling error

In general, public opinion

Sets limits on government action

The key factors in determining the accuracy of an opinion poll are the

Size of the sample and whether the sample was selected from the population by a random method

According to recent Pew Research Center poll, young adults are substantially more likely than senior citizens to support

Stronger environmental regulations

What was the primary cause for an increase in the public's support for a military invasion of Iraq during the six-month period leading to the start of the war?

The Bush administration's efforts to press the case for war

Society in Northern Ireland is presented by the text as a demonstration of what difference with U.S. society?

The lack of crosscutting between groups

Which of the following is true of letter writers and demonstrators?

Their opinions tend to be more extreme than those of the population as whole

Each of the following statements could be considered true of either economic or social liberals, EXCEPT that

They believe that government should be used to promote traditional values

Of the following countries, which one has the highest level of national pride?

United States

In his definition of public opinion, the author states that the opinion of private individuals become public opinion when they

are openly expressed