American Attitudes About Government
The belief that each person should have the same opportunities to advance in society.
What is equal opportunity?
Major events and social trends that affect the political attitudes of the entire population
What are Period Effects?
Polls conducted by a campaign as a race for office begins. These polls provide the campaign with a basis for comparison for later polls, so that the candidate can see if their likelihood of winning the office is increasing or decreasing.
What are Benchmark Polls?
Public policy related to health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor.
What is Social Policy?
A political system in which there are restrictions placed on the government to protect individual rights and liberties.
What is Limited Government?
The process by which a person develops political values and beliefs, including through interactions with family, friends, school, religious and civic groups, and the media.
What is Political Socialization?
Changes over the course of an individual’s lifetime, which affect their political attitudes and participation; as individuals develop from young people to adults to senior citizens, their concerns and values change
What are Lifestyle Effects?
A poll taken by sampling a small section of the public in an effort to predict election results or to estimate public attitudes on issues.
What are opinion polls?
The right to be free of government scrutiny into one’s private beliefs and behavior.
What is Right to Privacy?
The principle of valuing individual rights over those of the government, with a strong emphasis on individual initiative and responsibility.
What is Individualism?
An individual’s sense of loyalty to a specific political party.
What is party identification?
Experiences shared by a group of people who came of age together (generational cohorts, such as baby boomers or millennials) that affect their political attitudes.
What are Generational Effects?
A small, demographically-diverse group of people assembled for an in-depth group discussion. Researchers study the group’s reactions to an idea or candidate in order to gauge how the broader public might react.
What is a Focus Group.
Government decisions about how to influence the economy by taxing and spending.
What is Fiscal Policy?
The belief in the right to compete freely in a market governed by supply and demand with limited government involvement.
What is Free Enterprise?
Socioeconomic characteristics of a population, including age, race, gender, religion, marital status, occupation, education level, and more. These characteristics influence how individuals tend to vote and whether they identify with a political party,
Young adulthood, between ages 18 and 24, when many people form long-lasting political attitudes.
What is Formative Age?
Performed on Election Day, these surveys are taken as voters enter their voting location.
Government decisions about how to influence the economy using control of the money supply and interest rates.
What is Monetary Policy?
The principle that government is based on a body of law applied equally and fairly to every citizen, not on the whims of those in charge, and that no one is above the law, including the government.
What is the Rule of Law?
The growth of an interconnected world economy and culture, fueled by lowered trade barriers between nations and advances in communications technology.
What is Globalization?
A sharp change in the issues or voting blocs that a party represents.
What is Party Realignment?
A survey performed repeatedly with the same group of people to check and measure changes of opinion.
What are Tracking Polls?
Also called “The Fed.” An independent federal agency that determines US monetary policy with the goal of stabilizing the banking system and promoting economic growth.
What is the Federal Reserve?