Political Culture & Public Opinion
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Created by:
lcshellbell on February 28, 2012
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37 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 ideology | the "way of life" of a people, reflected in their collectively held ideas and beliefs concerning the nature of the political system, economic order, social goals, and moral values. |
| trust of government | people are increasingly having less trust in the government to watch out for their concerns and make political decisions that will positively effect them |
| political culture | commonly shared attitudes, beliefs, and core values about how government should operate |
| popular sovereignty | The concept that political power rests with the people who can create, alter, and abolish government. People express themselves through voting and free participation in government |
| American Dream | The widespread belief that the United States is a land of opportunity and that individual initiative and hard work can bring economic success. |
| moderate | Person whose views are between conservative and liberal and may include some of both ideologies |
| political socialization | Complex process by which people get their sense of political identity, beliefs, and values (family, school, media, religion, national events-all help to socialize) |
| ethnocentrism | tendency to view one's own culture and group as superior to all other cultures and groups |
| suburbs | Residential areas surrounding a city. Shops and businesses moved to suburbia as well as people. |
| gender | women (who vote more Democratic) are more likely to vote than men |
| religion | Jewish people tend to vote Democratic Protestants tend to vote Republican |
| Age | Older people (who usually vote Republican) tend to vote more than the 18-29 age group |
| Income | those with higher income (Republican) are more likely to vote than those with low income |
| socioeconomic status | a person's position in society as determined by income, wealth, occupation, education, place of residence, and other factors |
| consensus | agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole |
| reliability | the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting |
| latent | potentially existing but not presently evident or realized |
| sources of public opinion | wide variety of education levels, variation of age, race, age and economic status |
| attitudes of nonvoters | the feel powerless or meaningless, that they won't make a difference, they don't trust the government, don't understand the political system, 40% believe that they don't make a difference, 60% don't trust the government |
| middle class | A social class made up of skilled workers, professionals, business people, and wealthy farmers (tend to vote Democratic) |
| trust | trust in government tends to be low in the lower class |
| relevance | Adapting the information in the speech so that audience members view it as important |
| political participation | all the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue. The most common, but not the only, means of political participation in a democracy is voting. |
| Liberalism | a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties. |
| Conservative | a person who believes government power, particularly in the economy, should be limited in order to maximize individual freedom |
| Socialism | a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. |
| Diversity in America | 13 percent of Americans are foriegn born 150 distinct ethnicand racial groups in america Population of white Is decreasing # of americans who see themselves as multiracial is increasing |
| education | those who are college educated (Republican) are more likely to vote than those who have less than or equal to a high school education (Democrat) |
| Race | whites tend to vote more than minorities and they vote Republican, minorities such as Asian Americans, Hispanics and Blacks are usually nonvoters but tend to vote Democrat |
| Social Class | those who are middle and upper class tend to vote Republican and vote more than those in the lower class, who tend to vote Democratic |
| geographic regions | Northeast coast tends to vote Democratic and Midwest population tend to swing vote, suburbanites vote Republican, and southern voters vote Republican. |
| Public opinion | characteristics of a valid scientific public opinion poll: randomized sample, representative sample, question wording (unbiased, unambiguous), large sample size/low margin of error |
| polarized | When two opposing sides feel intensely about an issue. |
| intensity of public opinion | How strong public opinion is of a candidate/issue. If it is strong it is not easily changed, (ie pro-choice, Clinton etc.) |
| salient | (adj) noticeable; outstanding; important |
| When do Americans vote? | presidential elections |
| Independents | A term used to describe people who have no party affiliation |
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