No Opinion, Don't Know, and Maybe No Answer

Abstract

To what extent do typical candidate and issue polls give anything like “true” public opinion? How meaningful are survey data that emerge from uninformed, apathetic, and indecisive individuals who have conflicting opinions on the same issue, tailor their views to the roles they are playing. and lack any sense of responsibility for, or feeling of personal engagement in, the subject matter of the survey? Dr. Bogart, in this his presidential address to the American Association for Public Opinion Research in May 1967, makes a strong plea for greater research emphasis on how opinions come into being, evolve, and change.