Gauging public opinion

Within the past decade the field of public opinion research has been transformed from an academic hobby and commercial toy to a discipline of its own. The enormous possibilities of the sampling technique used in market research have been avidly exploited by American business. Newspaper and magazine publishers were quick to sense the news value of reports on what the nation thinks. And now responsible public officials have learned to take public opinion polls seriously for their contribution to modern statecraft.
The dizzy speed with which this development took place left the social scientist momentarily breathless. Vaguely he sensed that something important was happening in a domain he had come to regard as his own. But it was not easy at first to recognize in those methods, which were forecasting winning candidates or telling manufacturers the popularity of various brands of soap, a means for gathering data which the social scientist could regard as of some significance. Sometimes his irritation— irritation at the upstarts who often, neither knowing nor caring anything about traditional academic abracadabra, seemed nevertheless to carry off the honors or the cash—led him to a type of superior criticism that did little credit to his sense of objectivity. Sometimes, on the other hand, his genuine desire to learn the methods was- thwarted, either because of the expense of the research involved or because of inability to get specific information on the methods used from men who rapidly found themselves in a highly competitive game and who felt for a while that they had to play their cards close to their vests.
For a time, as a result, the social scientist as well as the layman was in the dark. About this new type of research there seemed to be something mysterious, almost fake. And yet, over and over again, it demonstrated its accuracy—in the form of predicting elections, increasing sales, or discovering useful information.