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Funny, I realized that I've never thought about how I react to polls until reading your comment. I flat out refuse to answer polls regardless of who is asking.

Funny, I realized that I've never thought about how I react to polls until reading your comment. I flat out refuse to answer polls regardless of who is asking. I refuse to leave any public artifacts of my political feelings (signs, bumper stickers, facebook comments, etc). The reason is exactly as you describe - I have nothing to gain and potentially something to lose. I am a problem for pollsters and there's no reason to think I'm unique in this regard.

ianai 6y ago
But, given the apparent popularity of social media you shouldn’t assume you’re representative either. I’m sure there are people like you - but we would be helped with a way to measure how many there are in polls. Guessing here, I’d imagine it’s related to income/age/sex/education/etc and possibly distinct subsets of those categories. Who knows though. I’m increasingly of the opinion that opinion polling needs to be closely reconsidered for informing policy. People conflate polls with votes and something above 50% is seen as having something like a mandate. But it seems like a very immature field or being used for way more than it’s worth.
onecommentman 6y ago
Not being a fan of push polls, for phone polls/opinion polls, I have a simple response. I let them know my charge for focus group participation is $200/hour, 2 hour minimum, plus expenses. The person on the other end is getting paid, but I’m the one with the desired information. Are these terms acceptable? The conversation ends quickly. Push polls really poisoned the well...
- StillBored 6y ago
  I did one of the phone polls about 15 years ago, and after about 30 minutes of questions I was really tired of the whole thing. But the last stroke is when instead of asking my opinions about issues/etc they started asking the personal questions (presumably to categorize me race, income/etc) I told them I was done answering questions and refused to answer anything that wasn't something you could conclude by looking at me on the street. Now I just say "no" and hang up. And thats probably a big problem for them too, I had a few friends in HS who worked as pollsters at the local mall, they actually paid people in gift certificates and the like for the hour they took up. It was all really upfront, "Hi, would you like a $10 gift card for an hour of your time answering questions?". IIRC it was 100% issue questions too, the age/race/etc questions were all later filled out by the pollster from what they saw rather than being questions on the form. So, yah, I'm guessing its a lot cheaper to run phone polls than pay people in the mall to give out gift cards.
icedistilled 6y ago
The sole time I answer a political poll, I remember being unable to answer a single question. Each one was so obviously a loaded question and completely missing context that I couldn't respond. All I could say is I need more context which they could not give.

ianai 6y ago

But, given the apparent popularity of social media you shouldn’t assume you’re representative either. I’m sure there are people like you - but we would be helped with a way to measure how many there are in polls. Guessing here, I’d imagine it’s related to income/age/sex/education/etc and possibly distinct subsets of those categories. Who knows though. I’m increasingly of the opinion that opinion polling needs to be closely reconsidered for informing policy. People conflate polls with votes and something above 50% is seen as having something like a mandate. But it seems like a very immature field or being used for way more than it’s worth.

onecommentman 6y ago

Not being a fan of push polls, for phone polls/opinion polls, I have a simple response. I let them know my charge for focus group participation is $200/hour, 2 hour minimum, plus expenses. The person on the other end is getting paid, but I’m the one with the desired information. Are these terms acceptable? The conversation ends quickly. Push polls really poisoned the well...

StillBored 6y ago
I did one of the phone polls about 15 years ago, and after about 30 minutes of questions I was really tired of the whole thing. But the last stroke is when instead of asking my opinions about issues/etc they started asking the personal questions (presumably to categorize me race, income/etc) I told them I was done answering questions and refused to answer anything that wasn't something you could conclude by looking at me on the street. Now I just say "no" and hang up. And thats probably a big problem for them too, I had a few friends in HS who worked as pollsters at the local mall, they actually paid people in gift certificates and the like for the hour they took up. It was all really upfront, "Hi, would you like a $10 gift card for an hour of your time answering questions?". IIRC it was 100% issue questions too, the age/race/etc questions were all later filled out by the pollster from what they saw rather than being questions on the form. So, yah, I'm guessing its a lot cheaper to run phone polls than pay people in the mall to give out gift cards.

icedistilled 6y ago

The sole time I answer a political poll, I remember being unable to answer a single question. Each one was so obviously a loaded question and completely missing context that I couldn't respond. All I could say is I need more context which they could not give.