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Tag: focus groups
GOP Report: Republicans Have A Problem With Female Voters

GOP Report: Republicans Have A Problem With Female Voters

Republicans can no longer deny that their party has a major problem with women. A new report, conducted by conservative groups Crossroads GPS and American Action Network, found that women are “barely receptive” to GOP policy, and view Republicans as “intolerant,” “lacking in compassion,” and “stuck in the past.”

The report, titled “Republicans and Women Voters: Huge Challenges, Real Opportunities,” was presented earlier this month to senior aides in Washington and obtained by Politico. The results are based on eight focus groups across the country and a poll of 800 female voters. Politico describes it as “the most detailed illustration of the problem” so far.

“The gender gap is hardly a new phenomenon, but nevertheless, it’s important for conservatives to identify what policies best engage women, and our project found multiple opportunities,” American Action Network spokesman Dan Conston told Politico. “It’s no surprise that conservatives have more work to do with women.”

The study found that 49 percent of women see Republicans unfavorably, while only 39 percent view Democrats unfavorably. Republicans do “especially poorly” with women in the Northeast and Midwest, and “fail to speak to women in the different circumstances in which they live” (for example, many don’t understand that not all female voters are stay-at-home moms).

It also found that Democrats have an advantage when voters are asked which party “wants to make health care affordable,” “looks out for the interests of women,” and “is tolerant of other people’s lifestyles.” Women who care about the economy, health care, education, and jobs vote “overwhelmingly” for Democrats. Politico points out that even though Republicans say that jobs and the economy are their top priorities, Democrats have a 35-point advantage with women who care about jobs.

Republicans only have a 3-point advantage over Democrats when it comes to which party has “good ideas to grow the economy and create jobs,” and is “fiscally responsible and can be trusted with tax dollars.”

The only area where Republicans did overwhelmingly better than Democrats was among married women, who prefer the GOP 48 to 38 percent.

The report suggests that the GOP develop policies that are not “driven by a desire to aid employers or ‘the rich.’” Two policies that former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pitched as ways to attract female voters — increasing access to charter schools and supporting more flexible work schedules — polled as the least popular policies. But the survey found that women think an equal pay policy would “help [them] the most.” So it’s clear that Republicans will continue to pay a political price by doing things like unanimously rejecting an equal pay bill.

The report suggests that the GOP “neutralize” the attack that Republicans don’t support fairness for women, and criticize Democrats for “growing government programs that encourage dependency rather than opportunities to get ahead.” It also tells the GOP that it needs to “deal honestly with any disagreement on abortion, then move to other issues.” Finally, it suggests that lawmakers do the “unexpected” and promote job-training programs, speak out against “gender bias in the workplace,” and actually support “expanding home health care services” through Medicare.

It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will actually follow the report’s advice. Though Republicans are likely to do well in the midterm elections, their lack of female support will drastically hurt them in the 2016 elections, especially if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.

AFP Photo/Michael Mathes

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Brain Wave Monitoring Is Better Gauge Than Using A Focus Group, Study Says

Brain Wave Monitoring Is Better Gauge Than Using A Focus Group, Study Says

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

To predict a large population’s likely response to something — a product, politician, or policy — political consultants, marketing gurus, and advertising execs have long favored the focus group. Ask a small segment of the target audience what it thinks about something, the formula goes. Tweak accordingly, and unleash on the public.

But what if a handful of subjects, a dozen or so electroencephalograms, and a few hundred yards of electrical wiring could do a better job of identifying a potential hit (or winnowing out a rotten egg)? A new study finds that listening to the average brain wave activity of a small group of subjects produces a more accurate prediction of a large population’s likely embrace of something than does asking the same few subjects what they think.

In the latest research, the 2010 series premiere of the AMC show “The Walking Dead” (shown after its airing to youthful subjects who’d not seen it) provided the experimental stimulus. The larger public’s actual judgment on the show’s curtain-raiser was gleaned not only by its Nielsen ratings but by a minute-to-minute tally of Twitter postings during the broadcast making reference to the show and its contents.

The researchers who conducted the study at New York University’s department of biomedical engineering then explored whether the collective brain activity patterns of a small group of subjects would predict a larger population’s responses to Super Bowl advertisements from 2012 and 2013. Their report was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Asking subjects’ opinions was of little value in predicting a hit or a flop. In addition to measuring their brain activity and devising a single measure of inter-subject synchrony, researchers asked subjects to rate the appeal of, or their level of engagement in, these televised offerings. The averaged ratings that subjects gave were a poor prediction of whether the viewing nation would stay engaged in and remember “The Walking Dead” or the Super Bowl ads.

In fact, the answers that subjects gave often didn’t fit with the collective brain wave patterns researchers observed and measured. In the case of some Super Bowl ads, the subjects’ oral assessments suggested they were left cold by the televised stimulus they had just seen, while an average measure of their brain wave patterns showed they had watched with keen interest. In other cases, subjects reported high engagement, on average, with an ad they were seeing. But the collective measure of their brain activation patterns suggested they were unmoved by the content.

It turns out that people in focus groups — and those in one-on-one interviews with evaluators — lie. Or they temper, hedge, prevaricate, or offer an opinion they think will make them look good to the person asking, said the study’s lead author, Jacek P. Dmochowski, now a research associate in Stanford University’s department of psychology. This “cognitive filtering” makes their assessments — even when they’re averaged — suspect, said Dmochowski, whose research was conducted under the supervision of senior author Lucas C. Parra of NYU.

Brain waves, by contrast, do none of those things, suggested Dmochowski. Subjects’ scalps were rigged with electrodes, allowing researchers to measure the minute-to-minute intensity of their brain activity. When alone in a room watching the series premiere of “The Walking Dead,” their patterns of brain activity suggested either that they were drawn into the drama or that their attention had wandered off to other pursuits.

When a large bloc of people pass collective judgment on, say, a new TV show, there is also no lying, no hedging and no tactful consideration: from the comfort of their couches, with remote-controls in hand and other activities competing for their time and attention, the collective of individuals that make up the public jury decide whether a show will be a hit or not, just as they decide whether a public initiative will be embraced or a politician will rally support.

When there was strong synchrony in the brain activity patterns of a small group — as few as 12 subjects watching “The Walking Dead,” for instance — the researchers believed they had distilled the signal that marks the stimulus as a hit. When brain activation patterns varied widely across the small group of individuals — as was seen with some Super Bowl ads that did not fare well in national surveys — researchers discerned the failure signal.

“The stimuli which we judge favorably may be those to which our brains respond in a stereotypical manner that is shared by our peers,” the researchers wrote. “Viewed in another manner, if one is able to evoke reliable neural activity from one’s audience, then that audience is, as a whole, more likely to find one’s message favorable.”

AFP Photo

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