POL 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Simple Random Sample, George Gallup, Orlando Sentinel

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 102
• Professor: ryancotter

Document Summary

Attitude - an enduring predisposition to respond to questions in particular ways. Polls - how we measure opinion, to try to estimate attitudes among the public. Re(cid:448)ealed p(cid:396)efe(cid:396)e(cid:374)(cid:272)es o(cid:396) the a(cid:374)s(cid:449)e(cid:396)s to a(cid:374) i(cid:374)te(cid:396)(cid:448)ie(cid:449)e(cid:396)"s (cid:395)uestio(cid:374)s. Responding to changes in the information environment. We want to know what everyone in our population thinks. We ask a sample of individuals and use their responses as an estimate of what would have happened if we had asked the whole population (with some uncertainty) The sample is representative of the population. (cid:862)a(cid:374)(cid:455) sa(cid:374)e pe(cid:396)so(cid:374) (cid:272)a(cid:374)(cid:374)ot escape the implication of such a gigantic sampling of popular opinion as is e(cid:373)(cid:271)(cid:396)a(cid:272)ed i(cid:374) the literary dige t st(cid:396)a(cid:449) (cid:448)ote. (cid:863) Elected officials need input regarding the public sentiment and the preferences about current issues. Trust - extent to which people believe the government acts in their best interest. Efficacy - the extent to which people believe their actions affect the course of the government.