[Peace-discuss] [Fwd: [lbo-talk] dumbass poll]

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The excellent Doug Henwood critiques another exercise designed to assure the 
political class that the other 80% of the population are dangerous idiots - 
because they're showing restlessness in the quiescent political role assigned to 
them. --CGE]


A dumbass poll by Harris to promote a book on how the wingnuts are
allegedly taking over has the liberals all excited. Key findings,
followed by why it's a dumbass poll.

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http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=37050&Category=1777 


	Mar 24, 2010
	"Wingnuts" and President Obama
	A socialist? A Muslim? Anti-American? The Anti-Christ?
	Large minorities of Americans hold some remarkable opinions

A new book, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America by
John Avlon describes the large numbers of Americans who hold extreme
views of President Obama. This Harris Poll seeks to measure how many
people are involved. It finds that 40% of adults believe he is a
socialist. More than 30% think he wants to take away Americans' right
to own guns and that he is a Muslim. More than 25% believe he wants to
turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a world government,
has done many things that are unconstitutional, that he resents
America's heritage, and that he does what Wall Street tells him to do.

More than 20% believe he was not born in the United States, that he is
"the domestic enemy the U.S. Constitution speaks of," that he is
racist and anti-American, and that he "wants to use an economic
collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers."
Fully 20% think he is "doing many of the things that Hitler did,"
while 14% believe "he may be the anti-Christ" and 13% think "he wants
the terrorists to win." ...

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http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/03/polling-on-presidential-pejoratives-.html 


	Polling on Presidential Pejoratives
	[Gary Langer]
	March 24, 2010 8:27 AM

Whatever profoundly negative things people might think about Barack
Obama, a new poll out today demonstrates splendidly how not to measure
them.

It nails the negativity, all right; this project purports to tote up
responses to a list of harsh criticisms of the president – e.g., that
he’s “anti-American,” “a racist,” “wants… an excuse to take
dictatorial powers,” “is doing many of the things that Hitler did” and
“may be the Antichrist.”

Hot words, those. The survey, done by Harris Interactive, apparently
was designed to test the theories in a book claiming the “lunatic
fringe is hijacking America.” The purpose seems to have been to see
how many people the pollsters could get to agree to pejorative
statements about Obama. Quite a few, it turns out – but with what I
see as a highly manipulative approach to questionnaire design.

I’ll lay off the sampling, though this survey was done among people
who sign up to click through questionnaires via the Internet in
exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts – not a probability
sample. Been there before. This time let’s just look at what it asked.

The poll starts by telling respondents “here are some things people
have said about President Obama,” then asking if they think each is
true or false. Fifteen statements follow, with all (excluding “he is a
Muslim”) unrelentingly negative. “True” answers run from a high of 40
percent, for “he is a socialist,” to a low of 13 percent, for “he
wants the terrorists to win.”

The problems are fundamental. “Some people have said” is a biasing
introductory phrase; it imbues the subsequent statements with an air
of credibility – particularly when you don’t note that others say
something else. (That approach can have problems of its own; the “some
people” vs. “other people” format implies equivalence.)

The subsequent statements, for their part, are classically unbalanced
– there’s no alternative proposition to consider. A wealth of academic
literature, neatly summarized here, demonstrates that questions
constructed in this fashion – true/false, agree/disagree – carry a
heavy dose of what’s known as acquiescence bias. They overstate
agreement with whatever’s been posited, often by a very substantial
margin. (This reflects avoidance of cognitive burden, which tends to
happen disproportionately with less-educated respondents, as is
reflected in Harris’ results.)

Using all negative statements, rather than a mix of negative and
positive ones, reflects another non-standard approach, one that can
further bias responses. (The ordering of  items, unclear in the Harris
release, can be troublesome as well.)

Another problem, which I discuss here, is the challenge of over-
literalism in evaluating survey results of this type. Rather than
answering disparaging poll questions literally, people who are ill-
disposed toward the subject may simply use these questions as an
opportunity to express their general antipathy – not as a thought-out
endorsement of the specific posit. And the use of hot-button invective
is ill-advised in its own right; respondents may just blow it back.

Admittedly it’s a challenge to measure these sorts of sentiments.
Unless carefully crafted, with balance and an approach that encourages
due consideration and probes for meaning, simply asking the question
can turn into little more than the old reporter’s trick of piping
quotes. It’s a shopworn use of true/false and agree/disagree
questions, one long overdue for retirement.

Harris indeed goes the next step by reporting its results as what its
respondents’ “believe” and as opinions they “hold,” as if they
themselves came up with these notions, rather than having them one-
sidedly set before them on a platter. Call me what you will – and I
know it can get nasty out there – but from my perspective, this is not
good polling practice.
		
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