Public Opinion Quiz
Polls designed to influence respondents' opinions are known as:
Push polls
Which pair of independent and dependent variables cannot reasonably be reversed?
Race (independent) and annual income (dependent)
Polls can track public opinion and:
Shape public opinion
Which statement explains why the life cycle theory does not always hold true?
Major events during young adulthood can affect people's political views for a long time
Which of the following lends support to the political generations theory of public opinion?
Many people who live through the Great Depression are life-long supporters of welfare programs
Surveys show that ______ Americans tend to be more tolerant and more in favor of civil rights than the public as a whole.
College-educated
The opinion of the general public tends to have little impact on government decision making because:
Indifference and fragmentation make it difficult to discern what the public truly thinks
What does public opinion polling provide that election results cannot?
Insight into citizens' views on specific issues
Which type of distribution curve is the most dangerous for a democracy?
A bi-modal curve
Which statement explains why a retired person who refers to herself as conservative expresses strong support for social welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and federal aid for prescription drugs?
A person's self-identification is not always consistent with his or her views on specific issues
A pollster can decrease a poll's margin of error by:
Increasing the sample size
Politicians with an early lead in the polls tend to get:
More campaign contributions and more press coverage
After interviewing a citizen about his support for the new health care bill, a newspaper concludes there is widespread support fro the new legislation in town. This is an example of:
Anecdotal evidence
Poor poll showings early in the campaign:
Are often a self-fulfilling prophecy
Which of the following is most likely to result in a pollster recording a non-attitude response for a participant?
Asking the participant his opinion on an especially complex issue
According to a 1998 Pew study of the attitude of politicians toward the public, politicians believed that:
Elites should decide policy questions
Which statement explains how Nate Silver was able to predict an Obama win in 2012?
He polled a more representative sample of votes than other voters did
In the U.S., some affluent suburbs are quite liberal, while poorer country dwellers are conservative. What does this suggest about Karl Marx's theories on class consciousness?
His prediction regarding the salience of social class does not apply to the U.S.
What is the most significant way in which television coverage turned public in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Images of police brutality toward African-Americans sparked widespread outrage
Gun control opponents tend to be __________ than the rest of the population.
More intense about the issue
Which of the following is a reason that the telephone survey is the most common polling method in the U.S.?
Other forms of polling are impractical or prohibitively expensive
Suppose two surveys are conducted, one asking people's level of support for "welfare" and the other using the term "assistance to the poor." The former survey finds much lower support than the latter. This discrepancy shows that:
Pollsters must be careful to word questions in ways that avoid biased responses
Why might a government go ahead with a policy or action that the majority of citizens oppose?
Public opinion does not always reflect what is best for the nation.
Suppose you are an advisor to a U.S. president whose approval ratings are sagging. What advice could you give to the president to help boost public approval?
Schedule a meeting with prominent foreign leaders to discuss a foreign policy crisis
In the U.S., a liberal would likely support _________, while a conservative would likely support _________.
increasing the minimum wage; banning same-sex marriage
