Massive Study Proves Push-Polling Works, Takes It As Proof That Conservatives Are Dumb
This story, from the home of the most underrated symphony on the planet, has been getting some press today:
Pittsburgh was one of 10 communities across the country that took part yesterday in an experiment in "deliberative polling," an effort to determine how much public opinion changes on issues when voters are provided information about those issues.
Voters... were asked their opinions on questions pertaining to national security and international trade policy before spending a day discussing these issues in a small group and asking questions of an expert panel. They were then polled again.
And what did this study find?
Respondents nationwide were less likely to support the war in Iraq and less likely to support free trade at the end of the deliberations.
See? See? Conservatives are just uneducated liberals. More like children than voters, really. All you have to do is sit them down, read them a nice story, and they magically transform from watching Fox News and supporting people who shoot deer to reading the LA Times and supporting people who shoot cops [ahh... a little Mumia joke to go with lunch -- ed When did this site get an editor? Shut up -- ed].
Except not really.
As any first year Psych student (not to mention anyone with a smidgen of common sense) knows, put people in a group and pretty quickly (certainly in less than a day) they'll start changing their views to conform with the majority of the group. And as any first year Communication student knows, pressure to conform can be especially intense in small-group discussions.
At the beginning, 46 percent of participants identified themselves as Democrats; 22 percent as Republicans, and 28 percent as independents.
Half the people were Democrats, and I'm willing to take bets that on balance the independents leaned left. For any psychologist the result that people shifted left after a day would be almost trivial.
Now, on the next topic, I'm not even sure if I can marshal the sarcasm necessary to discuss the way that the questions were formulated. My favorite:
In the initial poll, 58 percent agreed that "on the whole, more free trade means more jobs, because we can sell more goods abroad." Only 42 percent agreed in the final poll.
That 42 percent of people still agreed with this statement goes to show just how useless in terms of education these little brainwashing chambers really are. It's not that this statement is wrong per se, just that it's totally misleading. Free trade produces jobs because it boosts productivity (because of specialization) and lowers the cost of factors of production (by making cheaper materials available to producers), thereby helping the economy grow. It actually has very little to do with selling our goods overseas.
This was push polling of the worst kind - not only were the questions loaded, but there was group pressure to adopt the consensus view. This is bad social science and it's bad politics. Someone should let the Post Gazette know.
Update from Stan : 1. The PSO really is the most underrated orchestra in the world. They're fantastic. 2. Does anyone else find it amusing that the site author who lives in LA is doing posts on Pittsburgh, when the other author lives in Pittsburgh? I find it doubly amusing since it's 60+ degrees where Omri is and 5 where I am. 3. We have an editor? [Shut up -- ed]
Pittsburgh was one of 10 communities across the country that took part yesterday in an experiment in "deliberative polling," an effort to determine how much public opinion changes on issues when voters are provided information about those issues.
Voters... were asked their opinions on questions pertaining to national security and international trade policy before spending a day discussing these issues in a small group and asking questions of an expert panel. They were then polled again.
And what did this study find?
Respondents nationwide were less likely to support the war in Iraq and less likely to support free trade at the end of the deliberations.
See? See? Conservatives are just uneducated liberals. More like children than voters, really. All you have to do is sit them down, read them a nice story, and they magically transform from watching Fox News and supporting people who shoot deer to reading the LA Times and supporting people who shoot cops [ahh... a little Mumia joke to go with lunch -- ed When did this site get an editor? Shut up -- ed].
Except not really.
As any first year Psych student (not to mention anyone with a smidgen of common sense) knows, put people in a group and pretty quickly (certainly in less than a day) they'll start changing their views to conform with the majority of the group. And as any first year Communication student knows, pressure to conform can be especially intense in small-group discussions.
At the beginning, 46 percent of participants identified themselves as Democrats; 22 percent as Republicans, and 28 percent as independents.
Half the people were Democrats, and I'm willing to take bets that on balance the independents leaned left. For any psychologist the result that people shifted left after a day would be almost trivial.
Now, on the next topic, I'm not even sure if I can marshal the sarcasm necessary to discuss the way that the questions were formulated. My favorite:
In the initial poll, 58 percent agreed that "on the whole, more free trade means more jobs, because we can sell more goods abroad." Only 42 percent agreed in the final poll.
That 42 percent of people still agreed with this statement goes to show just how useless in terms of education these little brainwashing chambers really are. It's not that this statement is wrong per se, just that it's totally misleading. Free trade produces jobs because it boosts productivity (because of specialization) and lowers the cost of factors of production (by making cheaper materials available to producers), thereby helping the economy grow. It actually has very little to do with selling our goods overseas.
This was push polling of the worst kind - not only were the questions loaded, but there was group pressure to adopt the consensus view. This is bad social science and it's bad politics. Someone should let the Post Gazette know.
Update from Stan : 1. The PSO really is the most underrated orchestra in the world. They're fantastic. 2. Does anyone else find it amusing that the site author who lives in LA is doing posts on Pittsburgh, when the other author lives in Pittsburgh? I find it doubly amusing since it's 60+ degrees where Omri is and 5 where I am. 3. We have an editor? [Shut up -- ed]
