National Opinion Research Center

(noun)

NORC at the University of Chicago, established in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, is one of the largest and most highly respected social research organizations in the United States.

Examples of National Opinion Research Center in the following topics:

  • Religion and Social Support

    • Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Center, and the Pew Organization conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.
    • There is now extensive research suggesting that religious people are happier and less stressed than their non-religious counterparts.
    • The Legatum Prosperity Index reflects the research that suggests that there is a positive link between religious engagement and well-being.
    • Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Center and the Pew Organization conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.
    • Finally, as signaled in a recent review of 850 research papers, the majority of well-conducted studies suggest that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and higher morale).

  • Social Correlates of Religion

    • A U.S. study conducted by sociology researcher Lisa A.
    • The researcher suggests that wealth accumulation is shaped by family processes.
    • Religion and happiness have been studied by a number of researchers.
    • Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Center and the Pew Organization conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.
    • Identify what might be a tension in understanding highly religious nations and highly religious people

  • Defining Public Opinion

    • Public opinion or political opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population.
    • Public opinion or Political opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population.
    • Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views.
    • It was followed by many other federal bodies, including the US information agency which has conducted opinion research in all parts of the world.
    • Additionally, mass media utilizes a wide variety of advertising techniques to get their message out and change the minds of people.The tide of public opinion becomes more and more crucial during political elections, most importantly elections determining the national executive.

  • Early Public Opinion Research and Polling

    • The first known example of an opinion poll was an 1824 local straw poll by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian for the Jackson Adams race.
    • The first known example of an opinion poll was a local straw poll conducted by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian in 1824, showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency.
    • In 1916, the Literary Digest embarked on a national survey, partly as a circulation-raising exercise, and correctly predicted Woodrow Wilson's election as president .
    • Louis Harris had been in the field of public opinion since 1947 when he joined the Elmo Roper firm, then later became partner.
    • Identify the historical origins of public opinion research in the United States

  • Agenda-Setting Theory

    • In the 1968 "Chapel Hill study," McCombs and Shaw demonstrated a strong correlation between what 100 residents of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, thought was the most important election issue and what the local and national news media reported was the most important issue.
    • By comparing the salience of issues in news content with the public's perceptions of the most important election issue, McCombs and Shaw determined the degree to which the media sways public opinion.
    • Nominees participate in nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the Democratic and Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as Ross Perot in the 1992 debates.
    • Coverage of the political campaigns have been less reflective on the issues that matter to voters, and instead have primarily focused on campaign tactics and strategy, according to a report conducted jointly by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of the Pew Research Center, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Harvard University, which examined 1,742 stories that appeared from January through May 2007 in 48 news outlets.
    • Summarize the results of the key "Chapel Hill" study of the media and public opinion

  • Objective vs. Critical vs. Subjective

    • Weber recognized that social scientists have opinions, but argued against the expression of non-professional or non-scientific opinions in the classroom.
    • Whether or not scientists explicitly invoke their personal opinions in their teaching and research, every decision scientists make will ultimately rely upon - and thus demonstrate to varying degrees - their subjective realities.
    • As a result, current debates typically center around objective (an ideal) versus subjective (data-based) interpretations of science while scholars continue to debate the merits and limitations of subjective/objective versus critical approaches.
    • As you can see above, the research process itself is full of decisions that each researcher must make.
    • As a result, researchers themselves have no opportunity to conduct objective studies because doing research requires them to use their personal experiences and opinions (whether these arise from personal life, the advice of the people that taught them research methods, or the books they have read that were ultimately subject to the same subjective processes) throughout the process.

  • The Importance of Accuracy

    • Finally, when social scientists speak of "good research," the focus is on how the research is done–whether the research is methodologically sound–rather than on whether the results of the research are consistent with personal biases or preconceptions.
    • Glenn Firebaugh summarizes the principles for good research in his book Seven Rules for Social Research.
    • Additionally, good research will "look for differences that make a difference" and "build in reality checks. " Researchers are also advised to replicate their polls, that is, "to see if identical analyses yield similar results for different samples of people. " The next two rules urge researchers to "compare like with like" and to "study change;" these two rules are especially important when researchers want to estimate the effect of one variable on another.
    • The final rule, "let method be the servant, not the master," reminds researchers that methods are the means, not the end, of social research; it is critical from the outset to fit the research design to the research issue, rather than the other way around.
    • Discuss the importance of maintaining accuracy when conducting measuring public opinion

  • The Literary Digest Poll

    • Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion.
    • Beginning with early issues, the emphasis of The Literary Digest was on opinion articles and an analysis of news events.
    • Both groups had incomes well above the national average of the day, which resulted in lists of voters far more likely to support Republicans than a truly typical voter of the time.
    • George Gallup's American Institute of Public Opinion achieved national recognition by correctly predicting the result of the 1936 election and by also correctly predicting the quite different results of the Literary Digest poll to within about 1%, using a smaller sample size of 50,000.
    • This debacle led to a considerable refinement of public opinion polling techniques and later came to be regarded as ushering in the era of modern scientific public opinion research.

  • The Gallup Poll

    • The Gallup Poll is a public opinion poll that conducts surveys in 140 countries around the world.
    • Gallup, Inc. is a research-based performance-management consulting company.
    • He wished to objectively determine the opinions held by the people.
    • Gallup and Gallup Vice President David Ogilvy began conducting market research for advertising companies and the film industry.
    • The National Portrait Gallery can be seen in the reflection.

  • References

    • Working Paper 15639, National Bureau of Economic Research, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15639
    • Public Opinion Quarterly, 52, 125-133.