Political Knowledge

Political knowledge, in addition to political socialization and major events, impact the formation of people's political values and opinions.

Learning Objective

Discuss the relationship between political knowledge and public opinion

Key Points

While agents of socialization like family, peers, church, and school are important in developing political values, how much people know, factually, about their political system and leaders is also important in the formation of political values.
The formation of public opinion assumes that Americans are knowledgable enough to make a sound judgement; however, statistics indicate many Americans are ignorant on basic facets of American political life.
Some argue that Americans are not well-informed about politics as a result of rational ignorance, where it is believed that the costs of gaining enough political knowledge to be informed outweighs the benefits.

Terms

political socialization
The "developmental processes by which children and adolescents acquire political cognition, attitudes, and behaviors." It refers to a learning process by which political norms and behavior are transmitted from one generation to another.
rational ignorance
The belief that the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.

Full Text

Forming Opinions through Knowledge

While it is known that agents of political socialization (such as family, peers, church, and school) and major life and political events impact political values and public opinion, some argue that political knowledge plays a large role as well.

In this view, public opinion is formed and shaped when people investigate and research politics, and are consequently able to form their own opinions. How much people know about their government and their leaders, where they receive their information, the quality and impartiality of the sources they used, all impact the formation of their political values and opinions .

Political Knowledge

Some people are that political values are formed as a result of political knowledge. Researching two political candidates, as illustrated in this flyer, help increase political knowledge.

Forming Opinions without Knowledge

The formation of public opinion assumes that Americans know enough about political issues to shape opinions based on political knowledge. However, certain statistics demonstrate that many Americans lack this basic knowledge about politics. Many people cannot identify important political figures or are misinformed about important political issues, such as how much foreign aid the United States donates or what is actually written in the Constitution.

This type of voter ignorance is due to the fact that, oftentimes, the cost of investigating political issues and forming opinions outweighs the benefits. This theory, called "rational ignorance," effects the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people and can be seen in general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small.

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