HKU POP: PSI continues to dropBack

 

Press Release on April 28, 2016

| Detailed Findings (Public Sentiment Index Feature Page) |


Background

The Public Sentiment Index (PSI) compiled by 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 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 April 24, 2016, while that of the next round of release will be May 8, 2016. The tentative release date for the next release will be May 12, 2016 (Thursday).


Latest Figures

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 2015 year-end and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. The PSI released by POP today shows that as of April 24, 2016, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 59.6, down 1.8 from early-April. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 73.3 and 68.2, down 4.2 and up 1.5 respectively. The chart of PSI, GA and SA are shown below:

Latest figure

Public Sentiment Index
(PSI): 59.6 (-1.8)

Government Appraisal
(GA): 73.3 (-4.2)

Society Appraisal
(SA): 68.2 (+1.5)


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

Release date

18/2/16

3/3/16

17/3/16

31/3/16

14/4/16

28/4/16

Latest change[2]

Cut-off date

4/2/16

28/2/16

13/3/16

22/3/16

10/4/16

24/4/16

--

Public Sentiment Index (PSI)

58.6

63.0

55.5

64.2

61.4

59.6

-1.8

Government Appraisal (GA)

74.4

75.4

69.5

73.9

77.5

73.3

-4.2

Rating of CE

39.5

39.8

37.7

39.8

41.6

39.6

-2.0

Net approval rate of CE

-39%

-38%

-40%

-40%

-32%

-41%

-10%

Mean value of people’s satisfaction with SARG

2.6

2.5

2.4

2.5

2.5

2.5

-0.1

Mean value of people’s trust in SARG

2.8

2.9

2.7

2.8

2.9

2.8

-0.1

Society Appraisal (SA)

65.7

71.2

66.1

74.4

66.7

68.2

+1.5

People’s satisfaction with political condition

1.9

1.9

1.9

2.0

1.9

1.8

--

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

2.6

2.8

2.6

2.7

2.6

2.7

+0.1

Weighting index of economic condition

0.34[1]

0.34[1]

0.34[1]

0.34[1]

0.34[1]

0.34[1]

--

People’s satisfaction with livelihood condition

2.4

2.5

2.4

2.6

2.4

2.5

--

Weighting index of livelihood condition

0.36[1]

0.36[1]

0.36[1]

0.36[1]

0.36[1]

0.36[1]

--

[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.


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 59.6 can be considered as among the worst 1% across the past 20 years or so, while the GA and SA scores of 73.3 and 68.2 can be considered as among the worst 4% and 2% respectively.


Commentary

Winnie Lee, Research Manager of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “After a 2.8-point drop to 61.4 in early April, Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index (PSI) further drops 1.8 points to 59.6 in the second half of April, and remains among the worst 1% across the past two decades or so. The decrease in PSI is mainly attributable to the decrease in the Government Appraisal (GA) Score. Specifically, the Government Appraisal (GA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of society’s governance goes down by 4.2 points to 73.3, whereas the SA Score that reflects people’s appraisal of the social environment increases by 1.5 points to 68.2. The current GA and SA Scores can be considered as among the worst 4% and 2% over the past 20 plus years respectively. 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.”


Next PSI Release (Tentative)

  • May 12, 2016 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm

Reference Materials on Survey on PSI