Social Problems Quiz 4

Making flashcards to help me prepare for my fourth quiz in my Social Problems course.

26 cards   |   Total Attempts: 182
  

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Cards In This Set

Front Back
Two ways that claims reach the public
Primary claimsmakers and the media
Opinion Polls
Ways to assess where the public is on any one social problem or proposed solution
Key questions to ask to assess the validity of opinion polls
1) Is it representative
2) How were the questions asked
What 3 kinds of information do members form opinions from?
Popular wisdom, personal experience, and internalized media messages
Folklore
Information spread informally among individuals
Contemporary legends
Stories people tell each other where the teller and listener believe its true
Joke Cycles
Collections of jokes about a particular topic
Office Folklore
Stories told that are spread by email or fax
Proofiness
Art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true-- even when its not
Truthiness
Truth that comes from the gut, not books. Made famous by Stephen Colbert
Margin of Error
Statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey's results
Why conduct polls?
1) informs and influences politics
2) Helps with strategy formation
3) Assesses value of a new product
4) Validates an already formed opinion
5) Media agencies report on it
Anecdotal Evidence
Evidence from a small "sample" of friends and acquaintances
Why do similar polls find different results?
Sampling error, systematic error, wording, calculation error, timing
Ecological Fallacy
Error in the interpretation of statistical data in an ecological study