Chapter 6

The most embarrassing Gallup poll failure in predicting a presidential election was

1948 Truman- Dewey

A properly drawn sample of one thousand individuals has a sampling error of roughly plus or minus

3 percent

Americans who attend religious services at least once a week are most likely to vote for which political party?

Republican

All of the following ideological types are prevalent in the United States EXCEPT

communists

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

major upheaval

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

most individuals are reluctant to speak out against the dominant opinion

What terms do scholars use for a purported opinion offered by a respondent who is unfamiliar with the specific issue

nonopinion

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

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

openly expressed

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 primarily socializing agent

peers

The process by which individuals acquire their political opinion is called

political socialization

A person who favors government intervention in both social and economic affairs is a(n)

populist

The most powerful religious force in contemporary American society is the

religious right

The accuracy of a poll is usually expressed in terms of

sampling error

In general, public opinion

sets limits on government action.

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

stronger environmental regulations

Which of the following states is solidly Republican

Alabama

Which of the following is true about public opinion polling

All of these are correct; opinion polls are the most relied-upon method of measuring public opinion; polls can be erroneous at times; sampling errors decreases as the size of the sample increases; polling accuracy diminishes when respondents are unfamiliar with the issues in question

Sources of polling error can include

All these answers are correct.; use of random telephone polling; unrepresentative samples; respondents' lack of knowledge or interest in the issue; question wording

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

American workers lacked sufficient class consciousness

Which of the following is true of Americans' pride in their democracy

Americans' pride in their democracy has decreased rapidly in recent decades, largely as a result of increasing partisanship

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 or leaning Democrat

Which of the following states is a competitive state, meaning that it could potentially vote either Democratic or Republican

Florida

Which of the following statements is true?

George W. Bush attempted to privatize aspects of Social Security, only to back down in the face of determined resistance

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

Most Americans do not demonstrate blind faith in their party of choice

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

On highly salient and emotional issues in particular, public opinion tends to affect policy to a greater degree than policymakers' agendas affect public opinion

What are the two distinguishing characteristics of political socialization

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

You are LEAST likely to find a "blue state" in which region

South

Which of the following actions by a member of Congress would likely lead Edmund Burke to classify that member as a "trustee"

The member votes against a resolution declaring war, believing it unwise, despite her constituents having a majority opinion in favor of the war

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

Which of the following statements is LEAST likely to apply to economic or social liberals

They believe that government should be used to promote traditional values

Which of the following states is solidly Democratic

Washington

__________ once said that he spent nearly all his adult life in government and yet had never seen a government

Woodrow Wilson

Party identification refers to

a person's sense of loyalty to a political party

A member of Congress who wants to act on what 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 selection of constituents

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 ideological types favor government activism in the economic realm

economic liberals and populists

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 fro collective bargaining

factory workers

In terms of party identification, slightly more than half of adults call themselves

fully Republican or Democrat

The accuracy of polling is diminished when respondents

give what they regard as the socially correct response to certain questions even thorough they think differently

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

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 war

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

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

the lack of crosscutting between groups

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

the sample requirements will be nearly the same

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

Women are less likely than men to favor

the use of force to settle international disputes