Understanding American Politics and Government

What is public opinion?

There are four basic traits of public opinion.What are they?

In what year did New York legalize same-sex marriage?

Which of the following are considered demographic variables?

A survey sample should represent all elements of a population __________ their population percentages.

What technique is the key to including people in a survey who are representative of the total population?

How do political scientists define political socialization?

What young people learn about politics becomes an important determinant of the values,attitudes,and beliefs that they will hold later in life because of two principles of learning.What are they?

At what stage of development do people understand the differences between Republicans and Democrats and begin to align themselves with one party or the other?

Which of the following is an agent of socialization?

How people experience political events affects the way that they understand politics and develop political attitudes in three ways.What are they?

If Angela,who is selected to participate in a public opinion poll about gender equality,has a head full of different,sometimes inconsistent ideas about the topic,how is she expected to respond to survey questions?

The chapter's "Unresolved Debate" box highlights the research of University of Michigan scholar Philip Converse.What question did Converse's work address?

In the chapter's "Unresolved Debate" box,researcher Chris Achen insists that instability in responses to public opinion surveys is not the result of Americans' incapacity to make good political decisions but something else.What is it?

Political pollsters have observed that the collective opinion of a group tends to make sense even though the group consists of individuals who are largely ignorant of the issues.What term do they use to describe this phenomenon?

Members of which of these groups can be considered opinion leaders?

The textbook discusses several kinds of shortcuts that can help the public arrive at collectively rational opinions about politics and government.Of the following,which is one of them?

What is salience?

Hispanics are a demographic group that confuses politicians because they are liberal on some issues and conservative on others.On which of the following issues are Hispanics,as a group,likely to take conservative positions?

Most politicians prefer that their positions __________ public opinion on most issues.