HKU POP: PSI rebounds at the end of last yearBack

Since the figures released by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong at the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) today come from the last tracking survey on this topic conducted by POP in 2014, the half-yearly averages published in the website are good for year-end stories. Because the handover of Hong Kong occurred on July 1, it may be more appropriate and accurate to analyze macro changes of Hong Kong society using half-yearly rather than yearly figures. Moreover, this press release has specially included some selected analyses of PSI over the past 23 years, which should be useful in running year-end reviews.

The Public Sentiment Index (PSI) compiled by POP 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 people’s appraisal of society’s governance while SA refers to people’s 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 28, 2014, while that of the next round of release will be January 11, 2015. The tentative release date for the next release will be January 16, 2015 (Friday).

From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to “rim weighting” based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2014 mid-year and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. The PSI released by POP today shows that as of December 28, 2014, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 80.8, up 14.9 from early-December. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 82.1 and 90.9, up 8.7 and 13.4 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 80.8 can be considered as among the worst 10% across the past 20 years or so, while the GA and SA scores of 82.1 and 90.9 can be considered as among the worst 12% and 27% respectively.

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

[1] POP will adopt the latest published weighting index figures when there are no respective updates.
[2] Latest changes are based on the differences between the exact values of the two figures, but not the rounded figures shown in the table.

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

Selected analyses of PSI over the past 20 years or so are tabulated as follow (using per month average figures):

* PSI readings were released twice a month after CY Leung became CE. This table reports the monthly average figures only, please go to the HKU POP Site for individual figures.

Figures show that when the last Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten came into office, PSI was 113.2, it peaked at 121.5 during his term of office, and troughed at 79.1. It was 121.4 when he left office.

As for Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa, PSI was 120.3 in July 1997 when he came into office, it peaked at 128.1, then dropped to 90.4 during the Asian financial crisis. Tung was re-elected in July 2002 when PSI was 92.2, it dropped to 67.8 during the SARS period, and troughed at 63.8 in July 2003. It was 89.6 when Tung left office.

As for Chief Executive Donald Tsang, PSI was 117.2 in June 2005 when he came into office, it peaked at 132.8. Tsang was re-elected in July 2007 when PSI was 127.1, dropped to 98.1 during the financial tsunami. In June 2012 when he was about to leave office, PSI was 74.7, also the lowest score registered during his entire term of office.

As for the current Chief Executive CY Leung, in terms of monthly average figures so far, it was 88.5 in July 2012 when he came into office. Its highest average so far was 92.2 in November 2012, lowest average so far was 60.8 in November 2013. It now stands at 73.3.

Frank Lee, Research Manager of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “After plunging to recent low in early December, Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index (PSI) rebounds in late December, by 14.9 points to 80.8, which can be considered as among the worst 10% across the past 20 years or so. The latest rise in PSI was mainly due to the significant increases in both the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA) scores, which stand at 82.1 and 90.9 points respectively and can be considered as among the worst 12% and 27% over the past 20 years or so. The latest monthly PSI stands at 73.3 points, down 2.3 points from November. Looking at our 23-year records, the lowest PSI so far was recorded in November 2013 during CY Leung’s term, which should have rung a bell. As for the 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.”

• January 16, 2015 (Friday) 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) (1992-2014)

• Online chart: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2014)

• Online table: PSI (per release) (2012 – 2014)

• Online table: PSI (per month) (1992-2014)

• Online table: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2014)