scholarly journals The Twilight of the Polls? A Review of Trends in Polling Accuracy and the Causes of Polling Misses

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Prosser ◽  
Jonathan Mellon
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
High Profile ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vote Intention ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Over Time

Polls have had a number of high-profile misses in recent elections. We review the current polling environment, the performance of polls in a historical context, the mechanisms of polling error, and the causes of several recent misses in Britain and the US. Contrary to conventional wisdom, polling errors have been constant over time, although the level of error has always been substantially beyond that implied by stated margins of error. Generally, there is little evidence that voters lying about their vote intention (so-called ‘shy’ voters) is a substantial cause of polling error. Instead, polling errors have most commonly resulted from problems with representative samples and weighting, undecided voters breaking in one direction, and to a lesser extent late swings and turnout models. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for polling both in terms of fixing the problems identified and new approaches to understanding public opinion.

Changing minds via collective action: Exposure to the 2017 Women’s March predicts decrease in (some) men’s gender system justification over time

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 678-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Saguy ◽  
Hanna Szekeres
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
System Justification ◽  
Gender Identification ◽  
High Exposure ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Us ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Over Time

Even though social change efforts are largely aimed at impacting upon public opinion, there is an overwhelming scarcity of research on the potential consequences of collective action. We aimed to fill this gap by capitalizing on the widespread 2017 Women’s March that developed across the US and worldwide in response to Donald Trump’s inauguration. We assessed changes in gender system justification of men and women over time—before and right after the Women’s March ( N = 344). We further considered participants’ level of gender identification and reported levels of exposure to the march as predictors of change. Results showed that gender system justification decreased over time, but only among low-identified men with relatively high exposure to the protests. For men highly identified with their gender, gender system justification actually increased with greater exposure to the protests. For women, we did not observe changes in gender system justification. Implications for collective action and for gender relations are discussed.

Do campaigns matter outside the United States? Equilibrium and enlightenment in Korean presidential elections

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Jeonghun Min ◽  
Paul-Henri Gurian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Presidential Campaigns ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vote Intention

Do presidential campaigns matter outside the United States? We examine how public opinion responds to campaign events during Korean presidential campaigns. The fundamental variables of the election year influence vote intention before the campaign begins and substantially influence eventual vote choice. Campaign events assist voters to learn more about the fundamental variables – regionalism, party identification, and retrospective evaluations of the incumbent administration – and this leads to more informed intentions during the campaign. The results suggest that there is substantial congruence in the explanatory power of Holbrook’s ‘equilibrium’ theory and Gelman and King’s ‘enlightenment’ theory in presidential campaigns held in the US and in Korea.

scholarly journals American and Chinese Public Opinion in an Era of Great Power Competition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Irwin ◽  
David R. Mandel ◽  
Brooke Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Opinion Polling ◽  
The Us ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Future Status ◽  
Chinese Public ◽  
Over Time

As US-China great power competition intensifies, public opinion polling may help gauge internal drivers of foreign policy decision-making. Using Pew Research Center data, we analyzed how Americans and Chinese perceived their own and each other’s countries between 2008-2016. We also compared these samples’ perceptions of current economic and future superpower leadership. While Chinese evaluated China more favorably than Americans evaluated the US, they also evaluated the US more favorably than Americans evaluated China. Among Americans, on average, Republicans viewed China less favorably and the US more favorably than Independents or Democrats. Although Chinese consistently viewed the US as the current economic leader, Chinese became increasingly optimistic about China’s prospects for future superpower preeminence over time. Conversely, American perceptions of America’s future status as a leading superpower became increasingly pessimistic over time, especially for Republicans and Independents. Republicans and Independents were also more optimistic about US economic leadership under Republican presidents, while Democrat perceptions were more consistent over time. We discuss our findings’ implications for US-China great power competition and in view of psychological theory.

scholarly journals Responsiveness and Unelected Leaders: Lessons from the Catholic Church

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Organizational Commitment ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Organizational Trust ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Over Time

Are leaders responsive to their members’ preferences over time, even when formal accountability mechanisms such as elections are weak or absent? Unelected leaders, especially religious leaders, typically influence their supporters’ preferences, yet I suggest they should also have strong incentives to be responsive because they rely on dedicated, core members for legitimacy, volunteerism, and financial support. I test this argument by first analyzing over 10,000 papal messages to confirm the papacy is responsive to Catholic public opinion. I then conduct survey experiments using nationally representative samples of Catholics in Brazil and Mexico (N=5,006) to show that members increase their organizational trust and participation as a function of their existing organizational commitment, and the anticipated cost of support. The evidence suggests that leaders have incentives to be responsive besides elections, although there may be limits to the benefits that members provide in return.

On the Individual

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Magnusson
Keyword(s):  
School Psychologist ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

A description of two cases from my time as a school psychologist in the middle of the 1950s forms the background to the following question: Has anything important happened since then in psychological research to help us to a better understanding of how and why individuals think, feel, act, and react as they do in real life and how they develop over time? The studies serve as a background for some general propositions about the nature of the phenomena that concerns us in developmental research, for a summary description of the developments in psychological research over the last 40 years as I see them, and for some suggestions about future directions.

Analytical measurements in food examination

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-41
Author(s):  
Sergey Khurshudyan ◽  
E. Lazareva ◽  
Anastasia Ryabova ◽  
Yu. Mikhaylova
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Food Products ◽  
Quality And Safety ◽  
Analytical Instruments ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Analytical Measurements ◽  
Product Identification ◽  
Food Market ◽  
Domestic Food

The process of formation and continuous improvement of methods for assessing the quality and safety of food products using analytical instruments to expose the increasingly sophisticated falsification of food products in the domestic food market can be traced in the historical context. In this article, you can learn about new approaches to product identification.

The Al-Qaeda Revival in Pakistan: Challenges and Prospects

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhan Zahid
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Terrorist Organization ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Tribal Areas

Pakistan remains a country of vital importance for Al-Qaeda. It is primarily because of Al-Qaeda’s advent, rise and shelter and not to mention the support the terrorist organization found at the landscape of Pakistan during the last two decades. The emergence of in Pakistan can be traced back to the Afghan War (1979-89), with a brief sabbatical in Sudan the Islamist terrorist group rose to gain prominence after shifting back to Afghanistan. It then became a global ‘Islamist’ terrorist entity while based in neighboring Afghanistan and found safe havens in the erstwhile tribal areas of Pakistan in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Prior to its formation in 1988 in Peshawar (Pakistan), it had worked as Maktab al-Khidmat (Services Bureau) during the Afghan War.2 It had its roots in Pakistan, which had become a transit point of extremists en route to Afghanistan during the War. All high profile Al-Qaeda leaders, later becoming high-value targets, and members of its central Shura had lived in Pakistan at one point in their lives. That is the very reason the Al-Qaeda in Pakistan is termed as Al-Qaeda Core or Central among law enforcement practitioners and intelligence communities. Without going into details of Al-Qaeda’s past in Pakistan the aim of this article is to focus on its current state of affairs and what future lies ahead of it in Pakistan.

Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Uterine Fibroids

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hajra Takala ◽  
Qiwei Yang ◽  
Ahmed M. Abd El Razek ◽  
Mohamed Ali ◽  
Ayman Al-Hendy
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Uterine Fibroids ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Working Adults ◽  
The Us ◽  
Alcohol Related Problems

Lifestyle factors, such as alcohol intake, have placed a substantial burden on public health. Alcohol consumption is increasing globally due to several factors including easy accessibility of this addictive substance besides its legal status and social acceptability. In the US, alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of death (after tobacco, poor diet and physical inactivity) with an estimated 88,000 people dying from alcohol-related causes annually, representing 1 in 10 deaths among working adults. Furthermore, the economic burden of excess drinking costs the US around $249 billion ($191.1 billion related to binge drinking). Although men likely drink more than women do, women are at much higher risk for alcohol-related problems. Alcohol use is also considered to be one of the most common non-communicable diseases, which affects reproductive health. This review article summarizes the current knowledge about alcohol-related pathogenesis of uterine fibroids (UFs) and highlights the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the development of UFs in response to alcohol consumption. Additionally, the effect of alcohol on the levels of various factors that are involved in UFs pathogenesis, such as steroid hormones, growth factors and cytokines, are summarized in this review. Animal studies of deleterious alcohol effect and future directions are discussed as well.

The Legal System and Its African American Constituents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Black People ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Legal Legitimacy ◽  
Black Public Opinion ◽  
Representative Samples

Despite popular reports that the legal system is in a state of crisis with respect to its African American constituents, research on black public opinion in general is limited owing to the difficulty and expense of assembling representative samples of minorities. We suspect that the story of lagging legal legitimacy among African Americans is in fact quite a bit more nuanced than is often portrayed. In particular, black public opinion is unlikely to be uniform and homogeneous; black people most likely vary in their attitudes toward law and legal institutions. Especially significant is variability in the experiences—personal and vicarious—black people have had with legal authorities (e.g., “stop-and-frisk”), and the nature of individuals’ attachment to blacks as a group (e.g., “linked fate”). We posit that both experiences and in-group identities are commanding because they influence the ways in which black people process information, and in particular, the ways in which blacks react to the symbols of legal authority (e.g., judges’ robes).

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