… Are likely voter polls actually more accurate than registered voter ones? To study this, I looked for as many instances as I could in our polling database for when pollsters included both registered voter and likely voter numbers in the same survey release. [cont.] Nate Silver, New York Times Read more »
Perils and pitfalls of ad testing
… The most important limitation of focus groups is actually a limitation of the human mind. People are very poor reporters of their own decisionmaking processes. We can ask them how and why they make decisions or which ad will motivate them, and they will answer those questions, but their […] Read more »
Behind the scenes at Gallup: A look inside the machinery of public opinion surveys
… With the media’s dependence on poll numbers – and the sheer frequency with which those numbers are collected – news consumers must educate themselves about which surveys provide valuable data and why. [cont.] Jennifer Skalka Tulumello, Christian Science Monitor Read more »
Emotion-sensing psychogalvanoscope demonstrated
An electric galvanoscope played strange tricks yesterday at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios when Dr. Karl T. Waugh, dean of psychology at the University of Southern California, measured the emotions of stars and players with the psychogalvanoscope, new device of science. … Put to practical use, he explained, the machine can be […] Read more »
Knock, Knock
… American public-opinion research has likely reached its version of peak oil, with the cheap, plentiful polling that undergirded political communication for 75 years no longer sustainable. Quick surveys may no longer be within reach of every blog, trade association, liberal-arts college, and state-legislative candidate. [cont.] Sasha Issenberg, Slate Read more »
7 in 10 Americans ‘Not Upset’ with Gay Marriage
Several polls show that over the past three years, there has been a significant change in American public opinion in favor of gay marriage. Still, those same polls suggest that, at best, the country today is about evenly divided on the issue, with just a slight majority willing to accept […] Read more »