HKU POP: PSI continues to reboundBack

Press Release on January 3, 2014

Background

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 respective of 4 and 6 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 December 29, 2013, while that of the next round of release will be January 12, 2014. The tentative release date for the next release will be January 17, 2014 (Friday).

Latest Figures

The PSI released by POP today shows that as of December 29, 2013, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 70.7, up 4.5 from early December. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 79.4 and 78.6, up 4.2 and 2.5 respectively. The monthly average charts of PSI, GA and SA are shown below:

Latest figure	Public Sentiment Index (PSI): 70.7 (+4.5)	Government Appraisal (GA): 79.4 (+4.2)	Society Appraisal (SA): 78.6 (+2.5)
Monthly average	Public Sentiment Index (PSI): 68.4 (+7.6)	Government Appraisal (GA): 77.3 (+5.2)	Society Appraisal (SA): 77.3 (+6.1)

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

Score value	Percentile	Score value	Percentile
140-200	Highest 1%	0-60	Lowest 1%
125	Highest 5%	75	Lowest 5%
120	Highest 10%	80	Lowest 10%
110	Highest 25%	90	Lowest 25%
100 being normal level, meaning half above half below

The latest PSI of 70.7 can be considered as among the worst 3% across the past 20 years, while the GA and SA scores of 79.4 and 78.6 can be considered as among the worst 9% and 8% respectively.

Recent values of PSI, GA, SA and 10 fundamental figures are tabulated as follows:

Release date	17/10/13	31/10/13	14/11/13	28/11/13	12/12/13	3/1/14	Latest change
Cut-off date	13/10/13	27/10/13	10/11/13	24/11/13	8/12/13	29/12/13	--
Public Sentiment Index (PSI)	74.1	62.2	58.3	63.3	66.2	70.7	+4.5
Government Appraisal (GA)	86.8	74.8	72.1	72.1	75.2	79.4	+4.2
Rating of CE	48.1	44.0	41.2	40.0	42.0	45.0	+3.0
Net approval rate of CE	-24%	-38%	-41%	-39%	-46%	-37%	+9%
Mean value of people’s satisfaction with SARG	2.7	2.5	2.4	2.4	2.5	2.6	+0.1
Mean value of people’s trust in SARG	3.0	2.7	2.7	2.7	2.9	2.9	--
Society Appraisal (SA)	76.3	70.7	67.6	75.0	76.1	78.6	+2.5
People’s satisfaction with political condition	2.2	2.0	1.9	2.1	2.1	2.2	+0.1
Weighting index of political condition	0.30^[1]	0.30^[1]	0.30^[1]	0.30^[1]	0.30^[1]	0.30^[1]	--
People’s satisfaction with economic condition	2.7	2.7	2.7	2.8	2.8	2.8	--
Weighting index of economic condition	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	--
People’s satisfaction with livelihood condition	2.5	2.4	2.4	2.5	2.5	2.5	--
Weighting index of livelihood condition	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	0.35^[1]	--

[1] POP will adopt the latest published weighting index figures when there are no respective updates.

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

Per month figure	10/13	11/13	12/13	Latest change
Public Sentiment Index (PSI)	68.1	60.8	68.4	+7.6
Government Appraisal (GA)	80.8	72.1	77.3	+5.2
Society Appraisal (SA)	73.5	71.3	77.3	+6.1

Commentary

Edward Chit-Fai Tai, Senior Data Analyst of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index continues to rebound from its record low registered in early November, to the current value of 70.7 points, which can be considered as among the worst 3% across the past 20 years. The Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA) scores have both rebounded to almost 80 points, but can still be considered as among the worst 9% and 8% respectively across the past 20 years. All in all, after public discontent boiled in November, the public sentiment has now gone back to the level registered in the second half of October. However, it is worth noting that, the cut-off date for this release is late December 2013. How the “New Year Civil Referendum” and “New Year Rally” affect the public sentiment afterwards needs more careful examination and inspection. 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.”

Next PSI Release (Tentative)

January 17, 2014 (Friday) 1pm to 2pm

Reference Materials on Survey on PSI

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)