Chapter 17 Self-Check Quiz

Multiple choice

1. Public opinion is best described as:

A. The unanimous view of all citizens. B. The aggregated views of a population on matters of public concern, expressed through measurable channels. C. Whatever the loudest voices on social media are saying. D. The position of the median voter in the last presidential election.

2. The "margin of error" reported with a poll captures:

A. All sources of error including non-response and measurement. B. Sampling error only — the random variation from interviewing a sample rather than the full population. C. The difference between leading and trailing candidates' numbers. D. The pollster's estimate of how wrong they were last cycle.

3. The American National Election Studies (ANES) is:

A. A campaign-affiliated tracking poll. B. A daily horse-race poll. C. The academic gold standard, conducted around each presidential election. D. A right-leaning polling firm.

4. Trust in the federal government to "do what is right most of the time" has trended in which direction since 1958?

A. Steadily upward, from around 30% to around 75%. B. Steadily downward, from around 75% to around 20%, with brief upward spikes (notably post-9/11). C. Roughly flat at around 50% for the entire period. D. Cyclical with no long-term trend.

5. Philip Converse's 1964 finding about belief systems was that:

A. Americans hold extremely consistent ideological positions. B. Most Americans do not have stable, internally consistent ideological positions; ideology is a strong organizing principle for only a small minority. C. Ideology is irrelevant to American politics. D. Americans always vote based on careful policy analysis.

6. Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt) holds that:

A. Liberals and conservatives weight different moral foundations differently, with both sets being legitimate moral concerns. B. Conservatives have moral concerns and liberals do not. C. Liberals have moral concerns and conservatives do not. D. Moral concerns are irrelevant to political opinions.

7. The single strongest predictor of an American adult's party identification is:

A. Their household income. B. Their religious affiliation. C. Their parents' party identification. D. The first presidential election they voted in.

8. "Rational ignorance" refers to:

A. Voters refusing to learn out of laziness. B. The economic logic that, since any individual citizen's effect on outcomes is essentially zero, the rational allocation of limited time substitutes heuristics for systematic reasoning. C. The bias of educated voters against less-educated voters. D. A specific voting strategy in primary elections.

9. The "perception gap" research found that:

A. Americans of each party have accurate views of the other party. B. Americans of each party systematically overestimate how extreme the other party is, and the gap is largest among the most politically engaged. C. The gap exists for Republicans assessing Democrats but not vice versa. D. The gap is shrinking rapidly.

10. Kahan's "cultural cognition" research found that:

A. Higher education reliably reduces motivated reasoning on charged questions. B. Higher education and numeracy can deepen motivated reasoning on politically charged questions, because more sophisticated reasoners are better at reaching identity-aligned conclusions. C. Cognition is irrelevant to politics. D. Only conservatives engage in motivated reasoning.

11. Gilens and Page's responsiveness research found that:

A. Median-voter preferences perfectly predict policy outcomes. B. The preferences of the wealthy and organized interest groups correlate more strongly with policy outcomes than median-voter preferences, controlling for partisan composition — a finding replicated, qualified, and contested. C. Public opinion has no effect on policy. D. Both parties respond identically to all constituencies.

12. A poll shows Smith 49%, Jones 47%, MoE ±3. Most accurate?

A. Smith leads by 2 points. B. Statistically a tie, since the lead is within the difference MoE (~±5 points). C. Smith is certain to win. D. The poll is unreliable.

Short answer

13. In 100–150 words, explain why a specific policy with 80%+ polling support (e.g., universal background checks for firearm purchases) can fail to become law despite that majority support. Identify at least two distinct mechanisms.

14. In 100–150 words, summarize the difference between Bartels and Achen's (Democracy for Realists) view of voter reasoning and the Healy-Lenz pushback. What is the empirical disagreement, and what role does each side concede to the other?

15. In 100–150 words, describe the "education realignment" in American politics over the past two decades. Which voters have moved in which direction? What does the realignment suggest about the relationship between education, class, and partisanship?

16. In 100–150 words, explain what "house effects" are in polling and why they exist. Use a specific example. Why does this make poll aggregation more reliable than reading any single poll?

Answer key

Multiple choice:

1. B — public opinion is the aggregated distribution of views, measured through some channel.
2. B — MoE captures only sampling error; non-response, measurement, and specification errors are separate.
3. C — ANES is an academic survey, conducted around presidential elections, the gold standard for political-science research.
4. B — the long decline from around 75% to around 20%, with the post-9/11 spike as the only major positive shock.
5. B — Converse found weak ideological constraint among most voters; ideology was an organizing principle for a small minority.
6. A — Haidt's framework treats liberal and conservative moral concerns as both legitimate, with different weighting.
7. C — parental party identification is the strongest single predictor of adult partisanship.
8. B — rational ignorance is the economic-rationality framing of why voters do not invest heavily in political knowledge.
9. B — the perception gap is largest among the most politically engaged voters and runs in both directions.
10. B — Kahan found higher education can deepen motivated reasoning on culture-war questions.
11. B — Gilens-Page found wealthy and organized interests correlate more strongly with policy outcomes; the finding has been contested in detail and remains influential.
12. B — the lead (2 points) is smaller than the difference MoE (about 1.7 × 3 = 5.1), so it is a statistical tie.

Short answer rubric:

13 — Identifies at least two of: salience asymmetry (broad-but-shallow support vs. narrow-but-deep opposition); organizational mobilization gap; legislative veto points (filibuster, committees, conference, veto); partisan-coalition structure. Specific example required.

14 — Identifies Bartels and Achen (voters use group identity; issue positions follow party affiliation; voters punish incumbents for events outside their control) and Healy-Lenz pushback (voters respond imperfectly but really to performance and conditions). The synthesis: voters use heuristics that incorporate both identity and performance.

15 — College-educated voters (especially white) have moved Democratic; non-college voters across racial lines have moved Republican. The realignment is more cultural than economic; partisanship is increasingly organized around education-correlated cultural attitudes rather than industrial-class structure.

16 — Defines house effects (consistent leans from methodological choices on sampling, weighting, likely-voter screens); gives a specific example (Rasmussen right; Quinnipiac historically modestly D-favorable; Trafalgar R). Aggregation averages out idiosyncratic bias but cannot remove systematic bias affecting all pollsters the same direction (as in 2016 Upper Midwest).