10.2: Political Socialization and Public Opinion

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe how opinions form from beliefs and attitudes.
• Understand how political socialization and public opinion interact.

Introduction

As described in the previous section, public opinion refers to the views and opinions of the public at large. In political science, we tend to focus on inherent political questions, such as the public's views regarding government leadership, political institutions, policy preferences, or the nature of the political regime. Common questions may include: How do you rate your overall satisfaction with your government? How do you rate your trust in the legislature? The court system? The electoral system? Which political issue do you consider the most pressing challenge facing your government today? 

Knowing the public's opinion is valuable for numerous reasons. First, public opinion is information that officials need to take into account when determining what issues to focus on and how to solve problems, particularly under a democratic regime where the public can hold leaders accountable through elections. If public officials seeking re-election continually ignore their constituents, negative backlash may occur (e.g., they may lose the next election). Public officials need to know, and care about, what their constituency thinks of them and the issues they should focus on (Herrick, 2013). Second, and again particularly relevant in cases of democratic regimes with freedom of press, the results of public opinion research provide the media with the ability to inform citizens on others' views. This gives individuals the ability to self-evaluate their own views relative to their broader community. Third, knowing the public's view is valuable knowledge for scholars. There are entire subfields within political science (e.g., political behavior, as described within political psychology in Chapter 1) that primarily use public opinion as a data source, and scholars within these subfields study the impact(s) public opinion has on the polity.

Opinion Formation

Where do our opinions come from? Most people derive their opinions (and, in this case, political opinions) from their beliefs and attitudes, which form in early childhood (Key, 1966). Beliefs are our core views and values that guide us in how we make decisions or interpret the world. For example, a person may believe in a higher power or God. Having that belief in a higher power will inform what a person observes in the world and how to interpret it. As another example, a person may have a strong belief in equality. Having that belief in equality will help the person interpret if a specific policy is having its desired outcome.

Attitudes also impact our opinions. Attitudes are made up of our personal beliefs and our life experiences. For example, someone who has never had a good experience at a bureaucratic office (e.g., the Department of Motor Vehicles in the American context) may develop a bad attitude regarding government employees or civil servants. Or, someone who has had negative experiences with the police may have a suspicious attitude toward law enforcement. Conversely, someone who has had good experience with the police may a trusting attitude toward law enforcement. As our beliefs and attitudes take shape during childhood development, we are also being "socialized." That is, we are learning how to respond to the world around us, either in thought or action.

Political Socialization

We are socialized into believing all sorts of things and having a variety of different views, and many (if not most) of these views stay with us throughout our lives (Zaller, 1992). Some things we are taught, and other things we learn from our experiences and those around us. As defined in Chapter 6, political socialization is the process by which an individual's political beliefs and values form, change, and solidify over time. While 6.1 discusses political socialization in some detail, the agents of socialization are worth brief review to further draw out the connection with public opinion.

There are different agents to socialization that mold an individual's political views. First, since political socialization begins in early childhood, family is typically the dominant influence (Davies, 1965). For example, if a child grows up in a household where caregivers vote, they may take a greater interest in voting themselves. Or, if a child's parents are politically active in a particular political party, that child may be exposed to the same information sources from which their parents base their views. Second, education is an impactful agent (Mayer, 2011), as it exposes an individual to an academic environment (i.e., information taught in the classroom by teachers) and to peer influences through classmates and friends. If a child grows up in a homogenous community, they may not encounter ethnic, linguistic, racial, or religious diversity until they go to school, and the exposure to new experiences with others may inform their politics. Third, an individual's faith or religion (depending on their level of religiosity) is another impactful agent (Lockerbie, 2013). If a person attends church regularly, they are more likely to agree with that church's doctrine or the messages communicated by church leadership, and those messages may inform their political views.

There are other, and in some cases less impactful, agents of socialization that can also help shape an individual's views, such as a person's race, gender, age, geographical location, or occupation; a history of military service; exposure to monumental historical events (Hall and Ross, 2015); and exposure to media, which can set the agenda by choosing to focus on certain issues (Cook, et al., 1983) or introduce new and/or biased perspectives.

Once our views are established, they still can continue to change through new agents of socialization. Out of these views, we derive our political ideology and our belief in the appropriate role and purpose of government.