AP U.S. Government and Politics · Summary

Unit 4 summary

1. Core values such as individualism, equality of opportunity, free enterprise, the rule of law and limited government are widely shared, but people apply them to reach different policies.
2. Family is usually the first and strongest agent of socialization; schools, peers, media and religious groups also shape views.
3. A generational effect is a lasting view an age group formed from shared events; a life-cycle effect is a change that comes with a stage of life.
4. A scientific poll needs a random sample; read every result with its margin of error, and treat a lead inside the margin as too close to call.
5. Judge poll data by who was asked, how many, when and how; loaded wording, self-selected samples and nonresponse can bias results, and a push poll is not a poll.
6. Liberals generally want more government in the economy and less in personal life, conservatives the reverse, and libertarians less in both.
7. Congress and the president run fiscal policy (taxing and spending); the Federal Reserve runs monetary policy (money supply and interest rates). Keynesian economics, often favored by liberals, and supply-side economics, often favored by conservatives, are both theories about fiscal policy.