1. Political Socialization and Public Opinion
Chapter 11
Political Socialization and Public Opinion
American Government: Continuity and Change
9th Edition
to accompany Comprehensive, Alternate, Texas, and Essentials Editions
O’Connor and Sabato
Pearson Education, Inc. © 2008

2. Political Socialization
How Political Socialization and other Factors Influence Opinion Formation
Political Socialization
The process through which an individual acquires particular political orientations
The learning process by which people acquire their political beliefs and values

3. Agents of Socialization
Family
School and Peers
Mass Media
Religious Beliefs
Race and Ethnicity
Gender
Age
Region

10. The Impact of Events
Key political events play a very important role in a person’s socialization.
Nixon’s resignation in 1974
Impression on young people
Government not always right or honest
Survey in 2006 (18-20)
Failed to report a single political event that affected them during their early school years
Many of the major studies conducted in the aftermath of Watergate and the Vietnam War
Trust in government

12. Reinforcing and Cross-Cutting Cleavages
Societal cleavages (e.g. race, class, religion, gender, region, etc) can produce conflict and disagreement among the population over politics and policy.
Reinforcing Cleavages
If cleavages overlap with each other, this can heighten the conflict and be more divisive.
The disagreements produced by one division (e.g. class), will reinforce the divisions produced by another (e.g. race).
Finding agreement and compromise across groups in this situation can be that much more difficult.
Cross-cutting Cleavages
If cleavages cut across each other, this can lessen the presence of conflict across groups
Disagreements produced by one division can produce cross-pressures for individuals and mitigate
the divisions they may experience by way of another cleavage
Cross-pressures help produce "bridges" across the cleavages, making agreement and compromise
more likely.

13. This graph shows a slight tendency for class to serve as a cross-cutting cleavage on these issues. The lower SES groups (both white and black) tend to show slightly greater support for social programs to benefit the elderly, health care assistance, and assistance to college students, than their higher SES counterparts. However, blacks (regardless of race) tend to show slightly greater support than whites.

14. However, this graph clearly shows that there is indeed a pattern of class serving as a cross-cutting cleavage with race. Note that the level of support among the high SES groups is uniformly lower within racial groups (i.e. high SES black have less support than low SES blacks, and high SES whites have less support than low SES whites). Even so, within classes blacks do tend to show more support for these programs than whites, even though there may still be disagreement within the races across class lines. When the issue is about policy that has a more class-based component (e.g. making sure that everyone who is willing/able to work has a job, providing for a minimum standard of living, working to equalize income differences in society, and providing adequate housing to those who need it) the potential for class to cross-cut with race is greater.

15. However, it is a very different picture when the issue is more directly related to race. On matters involving race targeted policies (policies like affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws) all evidence of class as a cross-cutting cleavage disappears.

16. Public Opinion and Polling
What the public thinks about a particular issue or set of issues at any point in time
Public opinion polls
Interviews or surveys with samples of citizens that are used to estimate the feelings and beliefs of the entire population

17. The History of Public Opinion Research
1883 Boston Globe polled voters
1916 Literary Digest polling
Predict presidential elections
Correct from 1920 to 1932

18. History of Public Opinion Research
1883 Boston Globe polled voters
1916 Literary Digest polling
Predict presidential elections
Correct from 1920 to 1932
Public opinion polling as we know it did not begin to develop until the 1930s.
Spurred on by Lippman’s Public Opinion (1922)
Earlier straw polls used
Unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues and policies
Literary Digest
George Gallup
Correctly predicted the results of the 1936 presidential contest
Techniques became more sophisticated in the 1940s.
Dewey incorrectly predicted as winner

21. How Public Opinion is Measured
Traditional public opinion polls
Determine the content phrasing the questions
Selecting the sample
Random sampling: a method of poll selection that gives each person the same chance of being selected
Stratified sampling: A variation of random sampling; census data are used to divide the country into four sampling regions. Sets of counties and standard metropolitan statistical areas are then randomly selected in proportion to the total national population
Contacting respondents

22. Political Polls Push Polls Tracking Polls Exit Polls
Polls taken for the purpose of providing information on an opponent that would lead respondents to vote against that candidate
Tracking Polls
Continuous surveys that enable a campaign to chart its daily rise or fall in support
Exit Polls
Polls conducted at selected polling places on Election Day

24. Shortcomings of Polling
Inaccurate results can be dangerous.
Voter News Service made errors during the presidential election of 2000 estimating Florida
Failed to estimate the number of voters accurately
Used an inaccurate exit poll model
Incorrectly estimated the number of African American and Cuban voters
Results lead to an early calling of the election
VNS disbanded in 2003
Major networks and Associated Press joined together to form a new polling consortium, the National Election Pool

25. Shortcomings of Polling
Sampling Error
Sampling error or margin of error
A measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll
Limited Respondent Options
Lack of Information
Difficulty Measuring Intensity

26. Why We Form and Express Political Opinions
Personal Benefits
Political Knowledge
Cues from Leaders or Opinion Makers
Political Ideology

27. Personal Benefits Most Americans more “I” centered
Attitudes on moral issues are often based on underlying values.
If faced with policies that do not:
Affect us personally
Are not moral in nature
…Then we have difficulty forming an opinion.
Foreign policy is such an example.

28. Political Knowledge
Political knowledge and political participation have a reciprocal relationship.
Level of knowledge about history and politics low
Hurts Americans’ understanding of current political events
Geographically illiterate
Gender differences

30. Cues from Leaders
Low levels of knowledge can lead to rapid opinion shifts on issues.
Political leaders may move these shifts.
President is in an important position to mold public opinion
But who is truly leading-- the public or the president?

31. Political Ideology
An individual’s coherent set of values and beliefs about the purpose and scope of government
Can prompt citizens to form a certain set of policy programs and influence view of the role of government in the policy process
35% say they are moderate, 30% say they are conservative, and 29% say they are liberal.