The Case For and Against the Public Opinion Polls

8/11/2019 The Case For and Against the Public Opinion Polls

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THE JOURNAL OF MARKETING

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loading is increased by the use of the

word "reforms," which is known by psy-

chologists to have an unfavorable con-

notation when applied to politics. An-

other example taken from the work of

the same survey agency:

Do you think that any decision between

war and peace for this country should be

submitted to popiilar vote, even though it

might me n

a delay or would you prefer to

leave the war decision to Congress?

The words "even though i t might mean

a delay" point out a disadvantage of the

referendum plan, and therefore the ques-

t ion infers that the popular vote may be

the poorer of the two m etho ds. As would

have been predicted, this quest ion

showed a greater proportion in favor of

Congressional decision than did other

more neutral quest ions used by other

surveyors.

I t is only too evident that loaded

phrasings do occasionally occur. B ut this

is no indication th a t all polls m ak e this

error, or even that the guilty agencies do

it frequently or intentionally. Rather,

such biased questions seem to be the re-

sult of two factorsthe public opinion

poll technique is still developing and all

sources of bias are not always fully ap-

preciated, and a few inferior research

men are working in the field. Within a

short time, if present progress continues,

both of these sources of error will dis-

appear. In the meantime, the qualif ied

polling agent fortifies himself with "ex-

perimental" quest ionnaires to be sure of

his ground before he at tempts a large-

scale poll.

Genera l Hugh Johnson has charged

that polls sometimes ask questions on

subjects about which the public has no

real opinion. Actually, the conscientious

curately obtained than opinion about th

gold content of the dollar . In the lat te

case, the average person is not informe

abo ut th e pros and cons of the argu m ent

For accurate results , the informatio

covered must^be close to the experience

of the public .

As a check upon the scope and phras

ing of the questions, the poll superviso

depends upon the experiences of the in

terviewers who test the questions befor

they are used on a wide scale. Her

again, reliance is placed upon "test" in

terviews conducted by experienced inter

viewers wh o are frequently able to det ec

when a respondent is giving an answe

which reflects indecision or lack o

knowledge.

Despite the many well-known axiom

of selecting proper issues and phrasings

one polling agency has repeatedly pro

pounded questions which a college pro

fessor would find difficult to answer (ye

their respond ents do give answers )

Consider, for example, this quest ion th a

was recently asked:

Which of these courses of action come

closest to describing what you think Americ

should do about the present European war

Enter the war at once on the side of Eng

land and France.

Stay out now and for as long as we can

but go into the war on the side of Englan

and France if they are in real danger o

losing, and in the meantime help that sid

with food and materials.

Do not enter the war but supply Englan

and France with materials and food,^an

refuse to ship anyth ing to Germ any. *^

Take no sides and stay out entirely, bu

offer to sell to anyone on a cash and carr

basis.

Find some way of supporting Germany.

It seems impossible that the average re


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What about the criticism that polls do

not adequately measure the intensity of

feeling? A minority might favor the re-

turn of Prohibition, but this minority

could presumably be so vociferous and

well-organized that they would do a

great deal more than the "lifeless" ma-

jority in influencing legislation, custom

and editorial policy. It is true that al-

most all the present polls are quantita-

tive rather than qualitative. And the

mere asking of a question as to whether

the person feels "mildly" or "strongly"

is by no means a solution to the problem.

Let us suppose that 90% of the public

was found to be sympathetic to Finland

in its war with Russia. Even if 85% of

the 90 were "strongly " sympathetic, this

would not provide any measure of how

far their attitudes might influence their

behavior. It would be much more reveal-

ing to ask the 90% whether the United

States should ship war m aterials or foods

and clothing, lend money with or with-

out restrictions, send troops to aid the

Finns, etc.

This approach is being emphasized in

many poll questions even today. For ex-

ample, inarecent study one question was

phrased this way: "Do you ever turn

down your radio when an advertisement

is being broadcast?" This sort of ques-

tion provided a description of behavior

which reflected intensity of attitude, and

hence secured much m ore meaningful re -

sults than a question such as: "Do you

like or dislike advertisements on the ra-

dio? Very much or just a little?" In

other words, intensity can be measured

adequately in behavioral terms by in-

quiring what the person has done or

would do which would reflect the degree

of his feeling. The problem, then, is still

cause they are based on a very limited

number of interviews. Dr. Gallup has

pointed out that assuming 10,000 per-

sons are interviewed every week, it

would require 120 years before everyone

of voting age in the country had been

questioned. What General Johnson does

not understand is that the

nature

of the

sample is tremendously more important

than its mere size Probably no poll in

this country ever went wrong because of

its lack of size, but sizable polls have

been inaccurate because of a poor cross-

section, as witness the Literary Digest

fiasco. Practically all polling groups are

careful to secure a typical cross-section

of persons in terms of geographic dis-

tribution, type of community, sex and

age proportions, party affiliations, and

income levels (with appropriate propor-

tions of WPA'-ers and reliefers). Scien-

tific sampling is one of th e chief points of

difference between modern polls and the

former straw votes. If a representative

group of persons is interviewed, with a

total of only 600 to 900 interviews it is

possible to secure results that will be

representative of the views of the entire

nation within 5%. However, most na-

tional polls depend upon samples of con-

siderably larger size than this.

Most ridiculous of all charges against

the polls is that they destroy the demo-

cratic functions of government. For ex-

ample, it has been said that poll results

force legislative action, and thus take

power away from our legislators. It was

reported recently that a minority pres-

sure group went before a Congressional

committee to demand that a particular

bill be killed. mem ber of the committee

simply retorted that a public opinion

poll showed that the people wanted the


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cratic government, perhaps we should

have more of it.

Charges have been made that in elec-

tions the apparen t losers, as indicated by

poll results, will give up the fight, and

that therefore the poll technique leads

away from democracy. But this point

does not stand analysis either. The So-

cialists continue to nominate a Presiden-

tial candidate every four years, and to

put on a reasonably active campaign, al-

though they must be sure that they have

no chance of winning the election. Simi-

larly, it has been said that polls have a

bandw agon effect, that a large pro-

portion of persons will go over to the

apparently winning side. The most

widely publicized poll of its day was t hat

of the Literary Digest. Where was the

rush to climb on the bandw agon of the

apparently victorious Landon?

The poll technique does not lead to the

breaking down of democratic govern-

ment, but actually leads to greater de-

mocracy by giving legislators an accu-

rate index of public opinion. Further-

more, it has real value in a democratic

government by separating issues an

persons. For example. President Roose

velt interpreted his re-election as indi

cating popular approval of his pu rg e

and Supreme Court revision plans. A

the time of these efforts, all opinion poll

showed an overwhelming majority op

posed to both these plans, even thoug

still favoring Roosevelt as president.

Polls also play a large part in increas

ing democracy in another way. They fo

cus public attention on social and politi

cal issues, and by so doing, create

more enlightened public. As well as bein

good for democracy, they are good fo

business. Businesses have found that th

public opinion poll is their only means o

accurately measuring public reaction t

their companies, their policies, their ad

vertising, and their products. Being ofs

many diverse values, the public opinion

poll is here to stay .

Considering the many possible source

of error in the making of opinion surveys

the accuracy of the polls is indeed amaz

ing and a tribute to the scientific worker

in the field.

SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE

CONDUCT OF POLLS

LAWRENCE C. LOCKLEY

AND

ALFRED N. WATSON

Division qf Commercial Research

The Curtis Publishing Company

NY ARTICLE w hich dir ec ts at te n ti o n

,. of m arket research people to the

conditions under which polls of public

opinion and market surveys can advan-

tageously be used performs a service. It

may be possible, however, to over-sim-

plify a discussion of this problem to the

point where attention is focused on the

considerations controls the accuracy o

th efin ingsof any poll of opinion or m ar

ket survey:

1. Confining the objectives of the survey

to points about which the people to b

questioned have information to give o

have adequate information upon which

to form an opinion


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Documents

The Case For and Against the Public Opinion Polls