Chapter 6-10 POLSCI Exam 2 Questions

As a student of politics, being able to understand the results of public opinion polls means you

• have tools to explain the behaviors of candidates and public officials.

• can define the influences on the thinking of individual citizens.

• better articulate arguments to change the minds of those who are surveyed.

• may explain the considerations that determined the answers of the respondents.

The relationship between stable and latent opinions is best explained by which statement?

• Latent opinions are more likely to aftect intensity of beliet than stable opinions.

• Stable opinions are key in shaping the latent opinions that are developed on the spot.

• Opinions, whether

  stable or latent, are equally likely to be influenced by situational considerations.

• Fully formed sets of latent opinions developed through consistent experiences are even less likely to shift than stable opinions

The consistent coherent sets of political attitudes and opinions held by Americans are most influenced by

• dedicated study to policy issues and politics.

• social factors like family, region, and peer groups.

• mainstream media outlets and social media

• growing contlicts over culturally and politically divisive issues.

When conducting a survey on presidential approval, judging if the country is going in the right direction or wrong direction, or preferences on which group is most capable of handling particular policy issues, it is most likely that the responses of survey participants will be based on which factor?

• Economic performance

• Demographic characteristics

• Partisanship

• Complex interactions of information

A team of individuals seekine to find out what Americans believe about the state of the economy position themselves outside a large arena with the goal of gathering opinions from 1.000 attendees. Why can vou immediately dismiss the findings of this survey without knowing the outcome?

• Sample size problems

• Question wording issues

• Social desirability problems

• Selection bias concerns

Which sample groups and selection methods have the greatest likelihood of discovering the accurate measure of Americans' feelings about the performance of Congress?

• 1200 registered voters chosen through digitally promoted online surveys and random-digit dialing

• 1,124 college-educated eligible voters selected through information gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau

• 150 citizens participating in professionally facilitated focus groups

• 1050 citizens nicked random v through the use of random-digit dialing

Scholars, understand that popular portravals of a sharolv divided "red" and "blue" American electorate are misleading for which of the following reasons:

• Less than one-quarter of Americans hold consistently liberal or

  conservative ideologies.

• Partisan distrust has consistently fallen over the last generation.

• Americans are still unified about their support for the effectiveness of democratic institutions.

• Groups of liberals and conservatives have become more heterogeneous than in the past.

A great dichotomy about the distrust many Americans have toward our government and institutions is that

• Americans generally reflect confidence in the ability

  of government to meet public expectations

• American attitudes toward government institutions have improved since the civil rights era.

• Americans regularly show strong support for man individual government programs.

• American positivity toward democracy and democratic practices remains consistently high

Americans have greater political exposure in all aspects of their life than ever before in history, but the primary impact of the Internet has been to

• increase the overall knowledge and understanding citizens have about the role of government in their daily lives

• blur the lines between political fact and fiction because of the overwhelming availability of information without standards for posting.

• expand major television and newspaper organizations due to increases in readers and viewers from large Internet followings

• lessen the ideological divisions between groups of American voters.

A person reading through the top international story on the Web page of a major national newspaper is given information that helps the person understand the

context of the events as well as potential impacts on American diplomacy and international trade. The person has experienced which of the following effects of the media's need to determine how to use space and time limitations efficiently?

• Hostile media effect

• By-product theory

• Framing

• Yellow journalism