Intensity and salience

Strong preferences can motivate effort, but an issue is most likely to guide voting or participation when it also receives priority. Organization makes intense and salient preferences visible through meetings, messages, donations, and sustained monitoring.

Measure direction, strength, personal importance, vote priority, and behavior separately. A majority in a favor-or-oppose poll reveals none of the other distributions, and the people who contact officials may not resemble everyone who holds a view.

Imagine that most commuters mildly favor converting a traffic lane to bus use, while a smaller group of nearby merchants strongly opposes the plan. The merchants attend hearings because they believe the change threatens their livelihoods. Many commuters prefer the bus lane but rank housing costs and school funding above transportation. The hearing room will exaggerate the opposition's share of the population even though it accurately displays that group's intensity and organization.

Video lesson: Public Opinion: Crash Course Government and Politics #33