• Expectations and reality about the role of the citizen
  
  
  • Informed
  • Involved
  • Supportive of democratic ideals
    • Political Tolerance
      • Theory of democratic elitism
      • Pluralistic intolerance
  
  Elements of Public Opinion
  
  • Attitudes, Opinions, Beliefs, and Values
    
    • components of attitudes
      
      • Affective
        
      • Cognitive
        
      • Conative
        
    • Types of values
      • Instrumental
      • Terminal
  
  
  Measuring Public Opinion
  
  • Determinants of accuracy
    
    • sample size
      
    • representativeness
      
    • Validity
      
      • Question wording
        
      • Question order
        
      • Non-attitudes and "mushiness"
    • Sample designs
  
  
• Information processing
  
  • cognitive limitations of individuals
    
  • Online v. Memory-based models
    
  • Zaller's RAS model
    
  • cognitive dissonance
    
  • strategies for reducing dissonance
    
  
  Sources of Public Opinion
  
  • Political Socialization
    
    • Development of political orientations
      
      • Stages of pre-adult political socialization
        
      • Agents of childhood socialization (note the specific role of each)
        
        • Family
          
        • Peers
          
        • School
          
      • Role of genetics
        • Genetic heritability
        • shared environment
        • unshared environment
    • Demographic characteristics
      
      • Societal cleavages
        • Cross-cutting cleavages
          
        • reinforcing cleavages
          
      • in what ways, and why, do they covary with political attitudes
        
        • gender
        • race
        • age
        • religion
        • class and education
    
    
    
  • Media and Elites
    
    • Functions and role of the media in attitude formation
      
    • Media influence
      
      • two-step information flow
        • agenda setting
          
      • priming and framing effects
        
      • bias and negativity
        
      • limits on media influence
        
    • Campaign effects (or lack thereof)
  
  Terms you should know:
  

  accessibility axiom activation effect agent of socialization attitude attitude salience attitude stability affective beliefs black utility heuristic cognitive cognitive dissonance cognitive engagement compartmentalization conative convenience sample

  conversion considerations cross-cutting cleavage diffuse support essentialist framing genetic heritability group consciousness linked fate Likert scale margin of error memory based model minimal effects model multistage cluster sample mushiness index

  non-attitude online model opinion elites opinion leaders question order effects pan-ethnic identity predisposition political efficacy political parties model political tolerance political trust population priming probability sample racial identity

  rationalization reception axiom reinforcement reinforcing cleavage religiosity resistance axiom response acquiescence response axiom sample selective exposure selective perception social constructionist specific support subtle effects model

Discuss the gender gap in American politics.  How, and to what extent, do men and women differ in terms of the political attitudes and behavior?  What explanations have been offered to explain these differences, or the lack thereof?

Discuss the process of socialization. Who are the key players in the development of political attitudes among pre-adults, and what specific roles do they play in conjunction with, and independently from, each other?

Describe the process of opinion formation with the context of the "two-step flow of information." What role do political elites play in the formation of public opinion, and how is their influence affected by individual level differences?