PUBLIC OPINION POLLS study of the effect of isolated factors --such as knowledge of majority opinion-is still in its infancy. Perhaps future research will produce more evidence through the careful use of some type of panel technique for studying the effect of poll estimates on voting behavior. Casestudies of the "doubtful" and "undecided" voters throughout an elec-
tion campaign will also throw more light on the problem. But as the facts stand at present, there is one conclusion that seems tenable-that it is not what the polls publish as majority opinion, but rather the impact of events and the everyday life experiences of the mass of the people which are the determinants of political attitudes and actions.
POLLS AND T H E SCIENCE O F PUBLIC OPINION By Floyd H. Allport After discussing the bandwagon tendency and the function of polls in correcting "pluralistic ignorance," Syracuse University's social psychologist cxamines the nature of public opinion, on the basis of which he then criticizes the polls for ignoring several important dimensions of opinion measurement, and for framing questions in collective phraseology rather than in terms of the individual's own experience and expectations.
ONEOF the most significant of modern advances toward realism in the study of political and social problems is the rise of polls of public opinion. As with any new and basic method, however, it is expected that in their earlier stages certain crudities will inevitably appear. Since the objective in establishing the polls was one not only of fact finding but also of reporting and publicizing the facts found, the techniques, on the side of content and phraseology, have savored strongly of the journalistic approach. In spite of the wholesome progress toward accuracy in sampling and the use of statistical methods, the content of the questions themselves rests not so much upon scientific precision as upon the clichlk and stereotypes of thinking which newspaper editors are prone
to regard as the mental equipment of the "man in the street." Now that clouds of mistrust regarding the polls are arising in some quarters, it is a strategic time to subject the procedure to a more careful methodological scrutiny. This paper is concerned with only a small part of this broader undertaking, namely, a discussion of opinion polling as viewed in the perspective of a scientific description of the public opinion situation, and with the representative character and significance of the questions asked. There is space for only the briefest outline of the problems which emerge. Bandwagon Tendency
Among the criticisms of the practice of publishing poll results, one of the sharpest is that which is based