Gallup (company)

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Not to be confused with Gallup International Association.
Gallup
Founded 1935 (1935)
Founder(s) George Gallup
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Owner(s) Jim Clifton
Website Gallup.com

Gallup, Inc., is primarily a research-based performance-management consulting company. Originally founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became famous for its public opinion polls, which were conducted in the United States and other countries. In 1988, 4 years after Gallup died, Selection Research (SRI) purchased it from its heirs. SRI wanted the Gallup name to use on its polls, which gave them more credibility and higher response rates. Today the poll is used to gain visibility. Some of Gallup's key practice areas are employee engagement, customer engagement, talent management, and well-being. Gallup has more than 40 offices in 27 countries. World headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Operational headquarters are in Omaha, Nebraska. Its current Chairman and CEO is Jim Clifton.

There are about 2000 employees in the privately held company, working in four divisions: Gallup Poll, Gallup Consulting, Gallup University, and Gallup Press.[1]

Contents

History [edit]

George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion, the precursor of The Gallup Organization, in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1935. He wished to objectively determine the opinions held by the people. To ensure his independence and objectivity, Dr. Gallup resolved that he would undertake no polling that was paid for or sponsored in any way by special interest groups such as the Republican and Democratic parties, a commitment that Gallup upholds to this day.

In 1936 Gallup successfully predicted that Franklin Roosevelt would defeat Alfred Landon for the U.S. presidency; this event quickly popularized the company. In 1938 Dr. Gallup and Gallup Vice President David Ogilvy began conducting market research for advertising companies and the film industry.[2] In 1958 the modern Gallup Organization was formed when George Gallup grouped all of his polling operations into one organization. Since then, Gallup has seen huge expansion into several other areas.

From 1985, the organization started compiling video games sales charts in the United Kingdom.[3]

After Gallup's death in 1984, his family sold the firm to Selection Research, Incorporated (SRI), a research firm headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1988.[4] SRI, founded in 1969 by the psychologist Don Clifton, pioneered the use of talent-based structured psychological interviews.

George Gallup, Jr., established the nonprofit George H. Gallup Foundation as part of the acquisition agreement.[4] Gallup Jr. died on November 21, 2011.

Gallup Poll [edit]

The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world. Gallup Polls are often referenced in the mass media as a reliable and objective audience measurement public opinion. Gallup Poll results, analyses, and videos are published daily on Gallup.com in the form of data-driven news. The poll loses about $10 million a year, but gives the company the visibility of a very well known brand.[5]

Historically, the Gallup Poll has measured and tracked the public's attitudes concerning virtually every political, social, and economic issue of the day, including highly sensitive or controversial subjects. In 2005, Gallup began its World Poll, which continually surveys citizens in more than 140 countries, representing 95% of the world's adult population. General and regional-specific questions, developed in collaboration with the world's leading behavioral economists, are organized into powerful indexes and topic areas that correlate with real-world outcomes.

Reception [edit]

Gallup Polls have been known in the past for their accuracy in predicting the outcome of United States presidential elections, though they have come under criticism more recently. From 1936 to 2008, Gallup had correctly predicted the winner of the election with the notable exceptions of the 1948 Thomas Dewey-Harry S. Truman election, where nearly all pollsters predicted a Dewey victory (which also lead to the infamous Dewey Defeats Truman headline), and 1976, when they inaccurately projected a slim victory by Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter. For the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Gallup correctly predicted the winner, but was rated 17th out of 23 polling organizations in terms of the precision of its pre-election polls relative to the final results.[6] In 2012, Gallup's final election survey had Mitt Romney 49% and Barack Obama 48%, compared to the election results showing Obama with 51.1% to Romney's 47.2%.[7] Poll analyst Nate Silver found that Gallup's results were the least accurate of the 23 major polling firms Silver analyzed, having the highest incorrect average of being 7.2 points away from the final result.[8] Frank Newport, the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, responded to the criticism by stating that Gallup simply makes an estimate of the national popular vote rather than predict the winner and that their final poll was within the statistical margin of error. Newport also criticized those like Silver who aggregate and analyze other people's polls, stating that "It’s much easier, cheaper, and mostly less risky to focus on aggregating and analyzing others’ polls." [9]

In 2012, noted poll analyst Mark Blumenthal criticized Gallup for a slight but routine under-weighting of black and Hispanic Americans that led to an approximately 2% shift of support away from Barack Obama. At the same time Blumenthal commended Gallup for its "admirable commitment to transparency" and suggested that other polling firms disclose their raw data and methodologies.[10]

Gallup conducts 1,000 interviews per day, 350 days out of the year, among both landline and cell phones across the U.S. for its health and well-being survey. Though Gallup surveys both landline and cell phones, they conduct only 150 cell phone samples out of 1000, making up 15%.[11] The population of the U.S. that rely only on cell phones (owning no landline connections) make up more than double, at 34%.[12] This fact has been a major criticism in recent times of the reliability Gallup polling, compared to other polls, in its failure to compensate accurately for the quick adoption of 'cell phone only' Americans. [8]

In 2013, the accuracy of Gallup polling on the question of religious faith has also been questioned.[13] In particular, the fact that Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport has an agenda in seeing religious faith in God as not declining, as he outlined in his book God Is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America,[14] is seen[weasel words] as likely indicating bias in Gallop polling intention.[citation needed][neutrality is disputed] Gallup's polling on the issue produced somewhat different results[15][16] than other studies on religious "nones," including a 2012 study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which found that those who lack a religious affiliation or identity were a fast-growing demographic group in the U.S.[17]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Ira Boudway, "Right or Wrong, Gallup Always Wins, Bloomberg BusinessWeek Nov. 12, 2012
  2. ^ "Corporate History". Gallup. Retrieved 10 Jan 2010. 
  3. ^ http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=C+VG/Issue047/Pages/CVG04700011.jpg
  4. ^ a b Zernike, Kate (2011-11-22). "George Gallup Jr., of Polling Family, Dies at 81". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-11-26. 
  5. ^ Ira Boudway, "Right or Wrong, Gallup Always Wins, Bloomberg BusinessWeek Nov. 12, 2012
  6. ^ Poll Accuracy in the 2008 Presidential Election Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D. Department of Political Science, Fordham University, Initial Report, November 5, 2008
  7. ^ Romney 49%, Obama 48% in Gallup's Final Election Survey November 5, 2012.
  8. ^ a b Silver, Nate (Nov. 10, 2012). "Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race". The New York Times. 
  9. ^ http://pollingmatters.gallup.com/2012/11/polling-likely-voters-and-law-of-commons.html
  10. ^ Blumenthal, Mark (June 17, 2012). "Race Matters: Why Gallup Poll Finds Less Support For President Obama". The Huffington Post. 
  11. ^ Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index: Methodology
  12. ^ Cell Phone Addiction Threatens Polling Industry
  13. ^ Merica, DAn (January 10, 2013). "Bucking previous trends, survey finds growth of the religiously unaffiliated slowing". CNN. Retrieved 11 January 2013. 
  14. ^ "God Is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America". Gallup. December 4, 2012. 
  15. ^ "In U.S., Rise in Religious "Nones" Slows in 2012". Gallup. January 10, 2013. 
  16. ^ Newport, Frank (December 24, 2012). "In U.S., 77% Identify as Christian". Gallup. 
  17. ^ "'Nones' on the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation". Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. October 9, 2012. 

Further reading [edit]

  • Boudway, Ira. "Right or Wrong, Gallup Always Wins, Bloomberg BusinessWeek Nov. 12, 2012
  • Cantril, Hadley. Gauging Public Opinion (1944)
  • Converse, Jean M. Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence 1890-1960 (1987)
  • Gallup, George, ed. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-1971 (3 vol 1972), compilation of reports on thousands of Gallup polls.
  • Gallup, George. Public Opinion in a Democracy (1939),
  • Gallup, George. The Sophisticated Poll Watcher's Guide (1972)
  • Moore, David W. The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America (1995) online edition
  • Roll, Jr., Charles W. and Albert H. Cantril; Polls: Their Use and Misuse in Politics (1972) online edition

External links [edit]

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