What is an opinion anyway? Finding out what people really think

Traditional polls assume that opinions on any political or social issue can be collected simply by asking straightforward questions and recording the answers.

What is an opinion anyway? Finding out what people really think

Nick Sparrow

Introduction

Opinion polls have become the voice of the people. They are the only way the public (by means of a representative sample of a country’s citizens) can weigh in on critical issues.

(Frankovic 2007)

This claim assumes that people have views on the important issues of the day, ready to be voiced in an opinion survey. The trouble is many people do not bother to sort out their views on political and social issues into coherent attitudes and policy preferences. Perhaps they reason that they will...

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