Chapter 6 - Quiz

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

south

The accuracy of a poll is usually expressed in terms of

sampling error

Which of the following is true about public opinion polling

- opinion polls are the most relied-upon method of measuring public opinion - polls can be erroneous at times - sampling error 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

- use of random telephone polling - unrepresentative samples - respondents' lack of knowledge or interest in the issue - question wording

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

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

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.

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

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 sample of constituents

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

an ideology

in his definition of public opinion, the author states that the politically relevant opinions of private individuals become public opinion when they

are openly expressed

Currently, the greatest percentage of Americans identify as

democrats or leaning democrat

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

few developments illustrate the importance of _______ as sources of opinion more clearly than how Americans reacted to the threat posed by the COVID-19 coronavirus

experts

Which of the following groups in the U.S. shows a higher level of support for 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 though they think differently

in terms of the saliency of public opinion on gun control

gun control usually ranks low on the public's list of top issues

in terms of the intensity of public opinion on gun control

gun rights advocates feel more deeply about the issue than gun control advocates

a situation in which people base their concerns on a group identity and align themselves politically with those who share that identity is called

identity politics

A conservative is opposed to government intervention

in the economic but not the social sphere

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

nonopinion

early in the COVID-19 pandemic, despite countless news reports and official announcements, roughly a third of american adults were convinced that the virus was

no more dangerous than the seasonal flu

what has prompted increased calls for gun control in the United States

record-setting numbers of gun-related deaths

The most powerful religious force in contemporary American society is the

religious right

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

republican

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

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

in terms of the direction of public opinion on gun control

the majority favors stricter gun control laws

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

which of the following was one of the unexpected side-effects of americans heeding expert advice regarding COVID-19

traffic and air pollution dropped to their lowest levels in decades