HKU POP: Public Sentiment Index Continues to DropBack

The Public Sentiment Index (PSI) compiled by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong aims at quantifying Hong Kong people’s sentiments, in order to explain and predict the likelihood of collective behaviour. PSI comprises 2 components: one being Government Appraisal (GA) Score and the other being Society Appraisal (SA) Score. GA refers to peoples’ appraisal of society’s governance while SA refers to peoples’ appraisal of the social environment. Both GA and SA scores are compiled from a variety of opinion survey figures. All PSI, GA and SA scores range between 0 to 200, with 100 meaning normal, the grading reference of the scores are shown below. For methodological detailed please refer to the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk.

POP started to pilot study the “Public Sentiment Index” in year 2010 in collaboration with NowTV. The first survey was conducted in June 2010, followed by a series of monthly tracking surveys in 2011. There were altogether 13 surveys, covered by 11 releases from March 2011 to January 2012. All results have been uploaded to the POP Site.

At the end of June 2012, before the 15th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, POP officially released a “PSI analysis” with figures dating back to 1992, spanning over 20 years. Moreover, the frequency of the study was set at twice a month. In October 2012, echoing the start of a new Legislative Council, POP decided to set the cut-off date of all PSI analyses at the Sunday proceeding every 15th and last day of month, whereas the release date was set at the first Thursday following the cut-off date, except under special circumstances.

Cut-off date of the PSI figures released by POP today is October 27, 2013, while that of the next round of release will be November 10, 2013. The tentative release date for the next release will be November 14, 2013 (Thursday).

The PSI released by POP today shows that as of October 27, 2013, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 62.2, down 11.9 from early-October. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 74.8 and 70.7, down 12.0 and 5.6 respectively. The monthly average charts of PSI, GA and SA are shown below:

As for the meaning of the score values, please refer to the following:

The latest PSI of 62.2 can be considered as among the worst 1% across the past 20 years, while the GA and SA scores of 74.8 and 70.7 can be considered as among the worst 5% and 3% respectively.

Recent PSI, GA and SA figures are tabulated as follows:

Recent average PSI, GA and SA figures per month are tabulated as follows:

Edward Chit-Fai Tai, Senior Data Analyst of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “After the significant receding in mid-October, Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index (PSI) continues to drop in late-October, by 11.9 points to 62.2. Both the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA) scores drop at the same time, down to 74.8 and 70.7 respectively. These indices can be considered as among the worst 1%, 5% and 3% across the past 20 years, and also the record lows since CE CY Leung took office. Although the latest PSI is all time low, the latest monthly average is still higher than that registered in July 2003, so whether public outcry will occur remains to be seen. As for the monthly SA, it reaches an all time record low since the PSI analysis began in 1997. Recent major events especially the issue of free television licenses are of course closely related to the changes in PSI. As for the other reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in the ‘Opinion Daily’ of our POP Site.”

• November 14, 2013 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm

Please refer to the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk.

• Online resource: “PSI” methodological notes (Chinese Only)

• Online resource: PSI scores and their percentiles

• Online chart: PSI (per month) (1992-2013)

• Online chart: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2013)

• Online table: PSI (per release) (2012 – 2013)

• Online table: PSI (per month) (1992-2013)

• Online table: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2013)