HKU POP: Public Sentiment Index drops below 60Back

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 November 10, 2013, while that of the next round of release will be November 24, 2013. The tentative release date for the next release will be November 28, 2013 (Thursday).

The PSI released by POP today shows that as of November 10, 2013, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 58.3, down 3.9 from late-October. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 72.1 and 67.6, down 2.7 and 3.1 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 58.3 can be considered as among the worst 0.3% across the past 20 years, while the GA and SA scores of 72.1 and 67.6 can be considered as among the worst 3% and 2% respectively.

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

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

Jazz Ma, IT Manager of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index has dropped 3.9 points since the last release, down to 58.3 in early November. This is the first time the Index has dropped below 60-point level over the past 20 years. Both the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA) scores have gone down, to 72.1 and 67.6 respectively, and can be considered as among the worst 3% and 2% across the past 20 years. Because we only have the interim figures per month for November, it is still too early to tell whether the final average PSI for November would be lower than the record low of 63.8 registered in July 2003, it depends on whether there will be rapid change in public opinion. Recent major events are mainly surrounding the issue of free television licenses, its effect has already been reflected in this and previous 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 28, 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)