Saturday, October 27, 2012

Polls on racism

Althouse has a post linking the AP-sponsored study on politics and racism. From the AP story:
Overall, the survey found that by virtue of racial prejudice, Obama could lose 5 percentage points off his share of the popular vote in his Nov. 6 contest against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But Obama also stands to benefit from a 3 percentage point gain due to pro-black sentiment, researchers said. Overall, that means an estimated net loss of 2 percentage points due to anti-black attitudes.

"Racial prejudice" vs "pro-black sentiment" Are these things different somehow?

The survey questions are also available, and they include gems like:

RAC11. How well does each of these 
           words describe most blacks?
[ITEMS TO INSERT, RANDOMIZE]
Friendly
   Extremely well
   Very well
   Moderately well
   Slightly well
   Not at all
   Refused/Not answered

How is a rational and honest person supposed to answer that? "I know a few friendly and a few non-friendly and quite a few I've never gotten to know, with more being X than Y" doesn't fit in their grid anywhere.

at

2 comments:

  1. Assistant Village Idiot4:30 PM

    It sure looks like they want a certain result, but have come up against the wall of "gee, that's not a very scientific way to ask that. How can we make this sorta kinda fit scientific models, while still getting the result we are pretty sure is there?"

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  2. kyp Belligerent6:38 PM

    That's the usual method of research in the soft sciences. Start with a theory, assemble or create observations that support it, publish. That might be a bit cynical, but the media likes sensational, so interesting claims tend to be buried under provocative ones.

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