| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Focus Groups | Small gatherings of individuals used to test ideas before marketing. |
| Elites | Individuals in a position of authority, often those with a higher level of education than the population at large. |
| Public Opinion | Opinions held by private individuals that governments find it prudent to heed. |
| Political Culture | The dominant values and beliefs of a political community. |
| Straw Poll | An unscientific survey of popular views. |
| Political Socialization | The process by which individuals come to adopt the attitudes, values, beliefs, and opinions of their political culture. |
| Life Cycle Effects | The impact of age-related factors in the formation of political attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. |
| Generational Effects | The impact of events experienced by a generational cohort on the formation of common political orientations. |
| Cohort | The members of one's own generation. |
| Gender Gap | Systematic variation in political opinions that exists between males and females. |
| Direction | The attribute of an individual's opinion that indicates a preference for or against a particular issue. |
| Salience | The attribute of an individual's opinion that indicates how central it is to one's daily concerns. |
| Intensity | The attribute of an individual's opinion that measures how strongly it is held. |
| Stability | The attribute of an individual's opinion that measures how consistently it is held. |
| Informational Support | The attribute of an individual's opinion that measures the amount of one's knowledge concerning the issue. |
| Benchmark Survey | A campaign poll that measures a candidate's strength at the time of entrance into the electoral race. |
| Trial Heat Survey | A campaign poll that measures the popularity of competing candidates in a particular electoral race. |
| Tracking Polls | Campaign polls that measure candidates' relative strength on a daily basis. |
| Push Poll | Campaign tactic that attacks an opponent while pretending to be a poll. |
| Exit Poll | Interviews of voters as they leave the polling place. |
| Scientific Polls | Any poll using proper sampling designs. |
| Sample | The individuals whose opinions are actually measured. |
| Population | The people whose opinions are being estimated through interviews with samples of group members. |
| Probability Sampling | A sample design showing that each individual in the population has a known probability for being included in the sample. |
| Simple Random Sampling | Technique of drawing a sample for interview in which all members of the targeted population have the same probability of being selected for interview. |
| Systematic Sampling | A sample design providing that each individual in the population has an equal chance of being chosen after the first name or number is chosen at random. |
| Sampling Error | The measure of the degree of accuracy of a poll base on the size of the sample. |
| Pseudo Polls | Polls that are unreliable because they fail to use proper sampling and good question construction. |
| Leading Question | The wording of a question to suggest a particular answer desired by the pollster. |
| Nonattitudes | The generation of opinions by a poll that do not exist in reality. |
| Political Cynicism | The view that government officials look out mostly for themselves. |
| Political Efficacy | The belief that an individual's actions can have an impact on the political process. |
| Political Ideology | A cohesive set of beliefs that form a general philosophy about the role of government. |
| Liberalism | Political philosophy that combines a belief in personal freedoms with the belief that the government should intervene in the economy to promote greater equality. |
| Conservatism | Political philosophy that rests on belief in traditional institutions and a minimal role for government in economic activity. |
| Populist | Political philosophy expressing support for equality and for traditional social values. |
| Libertarianism | Political philosophy that espouses strong support for individual liberty in both social and economic areas of life. |
| Ideologue | One who things about politics almost exclusively through the prism of his or her ideological perspective. |
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