HKU POP releases the latest rankings of political figures and the PSI Back

Press Release on Novemeber 7, 2017

| Detailed Findings (People's Most Familiar Political Figures)

| Detailed Findings (Public Sentiment Index Feature Page) |

Special Announcements

1. From July 2017, apart from sampling landline numbers to conduct opinion surveys, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has also added mobile numbers to the sampling frame. After three months of testing, in October 2017, POP formalized the use of mixed samples as its standard for regular opinion surveys. The figures released today by POP have already incorporated landline and mobile samples, while “effective response rate” is continued to be used to describe the survey’s contact information. As for the weighting method, a two-step protocol is used. First, both the landline and mobile samples 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 2016 year-end, and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution as well as economic activity status distribution collected in the 2011 Census. After that, the mobile sample was rim-weighted according to the basic Public Sentiment Index (PSI) figures collected in the landline sample, and then mixed together to produce the final results. This weighting method has proved to be feasible after three months of testing, but POP will continue to review and enhance it, and keep the public informed.

2. To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP SITE” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of regular rating surveys of current CE Carrie Lam, former CEs CH Tung, Donald Tsang and CY Leung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,009 Hong Kong people between October 16 and 19 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. According to our latest survey, Carrie Lam is now the most visible political figure in Hong Kong. Leung Chun-ying ranks 2nd while Donald Tsang ranks 3rd. Compared to 5 months ago, 9 people remain on the “top 10” list. Anson Chan who ranked 10th last time has fallen out of the list after dropping to the 15th position. She is replaced by Starry Lee who has gone up from the 13th place to occupy the 10th place. The ups and downs within the latest list should be good reflections of our changing political environment. If we would like to focus on long term development, we can use the overall rankings accumulated over five years. Figures show that Leung Chun-ying, Leung Kwok-hung, Carrie Lam, Donald Tsang and Regina Ip are people’s most familiar political figures in the long run. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of “people’s most familiar political figures” is based on our surveys which requested respondents to name local political figures without prompting. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings. In other words, those high on the list may not be the most supported figures, while those lower may have a different ranking if we use a prompting method. However, those who scored best in unprompted surveys are no doubt the most well-known political figures in Hong Kong. The maximum sampling error of percentages of people’s most familiar political figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of this survey is 64%.

As for the Public Sentiment Index (PSI), the latest PSI stands at 116.7, up 7.7 points since early October. This time both component scores of PSI increase. Specifically, the Government Appraisal (GA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of society’s governance goes up by 7.0 points to 116.4, and the Society Appraisal (SA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of the social environment increases by 6.8 points to 106.3.

Points to note:

[1] The address of the “HKU POP SITE” is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] The sample size of the survey on people’s most familiar political figures, the sample size is 1,009 successful cases, not 1,009 x 64.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.

[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, at 95% confidence level”.

[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.

[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses “computerized random telephone survey” to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

I. People’s Most Familiar Political Figures

Latest Figures

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the survey results of people’s most familiar political figures. From July 2017, POP enhanced the previous weighting method that has been used for quite a few years. Apart from age, gender and education, economic activity status is now also taken into account when adjusting data. 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 2016 year-end, the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and the economic activity status distribution collected in the 2011 Census. The mobile sample has also been rim-weighted according to the basic Public Sentiment Index (PSI) figures collected in the landline sample. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Effective sample size	Effective response rate	Sampling error of percentages^[6]
16-19/10/2017	1,009	64.5%	+/-3%

[6] Calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified.

This survey on people’s most familiar political figures has been conducted for many years, with results initially released through our publication POP Express until October 2006 when we began to release them online. Between 1994 and 2005, the survey was conducted and released in the form of “top 10 political figures” using our usual “top 10” or “top 5” series survey design, which involved both naming and rating stages. Starting from October 2005, we simplified our “top 10 political figures” survey by just recording and analyzing the “naming” results, because we have already developed over time numerous rating surveys covering CE, government officials, members of Legislative and Executive Councils, and so on. As for the rating part, we only conduct supplementary rating surveys to cover those listed in the top 10 political figures but not covered in other rating surveys. Take our latest survey as an example, our supplementary rating survey of Leung Chun-ying, Donald Tsang, Leung Kwok-hung, John Tsang, Tung Chee-hwa, Jasper Tsang and Martin Lee will be conducted later and the results will be uploaded onto our POP Site in due course. Moreover, in our presentation of findings, different from the other “top 10” rating series, we introduced rankings from 1 to 50 for “people’s most familiar political figures”, as well as average accumulative rankings calculated from the past 10 surveys spanning over about five years, in order to indicate the ups-and-downs of these political figures in the long run. Please refer to our POP Site for details. Herewith the result of our latest survey on “people’s most familiar political figures”, other rankings beyond the “Top 10” can be found in the POP Site:

Date of survey	3-5/5/16		24-27/10/16		15-18/5/17		*16-19/10/17*		*Average ranking over the past 10 surveys* *^[9]*
Sample base	1,000^[8]		1,001^[8]		1,000^[8]		*1,009^[8]*		--
Response rate*	69.7%		72.9%		71.5%		*64.5%*		--
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)^[7]	+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		*+/-3%*		--
Latest finding / Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	*Rank*	--
Carrie Lam	33%	3	24%	6	57%	2	*44%+/-4%*	1	*4.2*
Leung Chun-ying	41%	1	35%	1	62%	1	*25%+/-3%*	2	*1.3*
Donald Tsang	18%	8	17%	8	34%	3	*24%+/-3%^[10]*	3	*5.0*
Leung Kwok-hung	36%	2	30%	3	27%	5	*24%+/-3%^[10]*	4	*3.2*
John Tsang	21%	7	32%	2	26%	7	*21%+/-3%*	5	*9.3*
Tung Chee-hwa	17%	9	15%	10	29%	4	*19%+/-3%*	6	*7.1*
Regina Ip	21%	6	27%	5	27%	6	*17%+/-3%*	7	*6.1*
Jasper Tsang	28%	4	28%	4	22%	8	*16%+/-3%*	8	*6.5*
Martin Lee	9%	16	9%	15	17%	9	*12%+/-3%^[11]*	9	*13.3*
Starry Lee	7%	21	16%	9	12%	13	*12%+/-3%^[11]*	10	*24.0*

* “Overall response rate” was used before September 2017, thereafter, “effective response rate” was used.

[7] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.

[8] The sub-sample size in May 2016 was 617, that in October 2016 was 621, that in May 2017 was 546, and that in October 2017 was 656.

[9] The earliest of the past 10 surveys was conducted during April 23 to May 1, 2013. For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.

[10] Based on the latest figures, the percentages of respondents who named Donald Tsang and Leung Kwok-hung were 24.5% and 24.2%, so they ranked the 3rd and 4th respectively.

[11] Based on the latest figures, the percentages of respondents who named Martin Lee and Starry Lee were 12.3% and 12.1%, so they ranked the 9th and 10th respectively.

In our naming survey conducted in mid-October, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Carrie Lam and Leung Chun-ying were the top two with 44% and 25% of respondents naming them respectively. Donald Tsang, Leung Kwok-hung and John Tsang occupied the 3rd to 5th places, with 24%, 24% and 21% of respondents naming them respectively. The 6th to 10th ranks fell to Tung Chee-hwa, Regina Ip, Jasper Tsang, Martin Lee and Starry Lee respectively, and percentages of respondents who named them were 19%, 17%, 16%, 12% and 12%. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. For easy reference, POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since March 1997.

Herewith some of the results of our “people’s most familiar political figures” surveys accumulated over past 10 surveys spanning over about five years:

20-28/11/2012──15-18/5/2017 ^[12]						*23/4-1/5/2013──16-19/10/2017* *^[12]*
Overall rank	Political figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys	Overall rank	Political figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys	Overall rank	Political figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys	Overall rank	Political figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys
1	Leung Chun-ying	1.2	11	Emily Lau	12.8	1	*Leung Chun-ying*	*1.3*	11	*Martin Lee*	*13.3*
2	Leung Kwok-hung	3.0	12	Martin Lee	14.2	2	*Leung Kwok-hung*	*3.2*	12	*Emily Lau*	*13.8*
3	Carrie Lam	4.5	13	Henry Tang	15.3	3	*Carrie Lam*	*4.2*	13	*Henry Tang*	*15.6*
4	Donald Tsang	5.2	14	Rita Fan	16.0	4	*Donald Tsang*	*5.0*	14	*Rita Fan*	*16.5*
5	Regina Ip	6.0	15	Albert Ho	16.6	5	*Regina Ip*	*6.1*	15	*Albert Ho*	*17.5*
6	Jasper Tsang	6.5	16	Alan Leong	18.6	6	*Jasper Tsang*	*6.5*	16	*Alan Leong*	*18.7*
7	Wong Yuk-man	7.1	17	James Tien	18.9	7	*Tung Chee-hwa*	*7.1*	17	*James Tien*	*19.1*
8	Tung Chee-hwa	7.7	18	Lee Cheuk-yan	19.4	8	*Wong Yuk-man*	*8.6*	18	*Michael Tien*	*19.7*
9	Anson Chan	9.3	19	Michael Tien	20.0	9	*John Tsang*	*9.3*	19	*Lee Cheuk-yan*	*20.9*
10	John Tsang	10.4	20	Ko Wing-man	20.9	10	*Anson Chan*	*9.4*	20	*Ko Wing-man*	*21.5*

[12] For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.

Based on the results of the past 10 surveys, Leung Chun-ying has the highest overall rank with an average ranking of 1.3. The overall ranks of Leung Kwok-hung and Carrie Lam come 2nd and 3rd respectively, with average rankings of 3.2 and 4.2. The overall ranks of Donald Tsang, Regina Ip and Jasper Tsang come 4th to 6th respectively, with average rankings of 5.0, 6.1 and 6.5. Tung Chee-hwa and Wong Yuk-man come 7th and 8th respectively, with average rankings of 7.1 and 8.6. The 9th and 10th overall ranks go to John Tsang and Anson Chan with corresponding average rankings of 9.3 and 9.4.

Opinion Daily

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”, to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from May 15 to 18, 2017, while this survey was conducted from October 16 to 19, 2017. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

17/10/17	The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
13/10/17	Joshua Wong and the others found guilty of criminal contempt of court for obstructing bailiffs at Mong Kok rally site.
11/10/17	Chief Executive Carrie Lam delivers her first Policy Address.
21/9/17	Former president of the HKU’s student union Billy Fung Jing-en and vice president Colman Li Fung-kei are sentenced to community service for barging into a HKU governing council meeting last year.
20/9/17	The government considers building container homes or prefabricated homes for transitional housing.
15/9/17	The heads of ten universities release a joint statement against “Hong Kong independence”.
8/9/17	A slogan congratulating Choi Yuk-lin on her son’s death is posted on the democracy wall at the Education University of Hong Kong.
25/8/17	The Court of Final Appeal rejects the application for appeal by Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching.
17/8/17	Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow have been sentenced to six to eight months in prison.
14/8/17	Democrat Howard Lam is accused of misleading police officer.
25/7/17	The government announces the co-location arrangement for the Express Rail Link.
14/7/17	The High Court disqualifies four lawmakers from the Legislative Council.
5/7/17	Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor attends the Legislative Council question-and-answer session.
1/7/17	Xi Jinping attends the Inaugural Ceremony of the Fifth Term HKSAR Government.
1/6/17	Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying attends his final question and answer session at the Legislative Council.

II. Public Sentiment Index

Background

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. In July 2017, after the 20th anniversary of the handover, POP further streamlined the release date and mode of PSI analyses to become POP Site release only for the first analysis of each month, and POP Site plus press release for the second analysis of each month. At the same time, the second release was shifted to the first Tuesday of the following month, except under special circumstances.

Cut-off date of the PSI figures released by POP today is October 29, 2017, while that of the next round of release will be November 12, 2017. The tentative release date for the next release will be November 16, 2017 (Thursday).

Latest Figures of PSI

The PSI released by POP today shows that as of October 29, 2017, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 116.7, up 7.7 from early October. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 116.4 and 106.3, up 7.0 and 6.8 respectively. The chart of PSI, GA and SA are shown below:



Latest figure	Public Sentiment Index (PSI): 116.7 (+7.7)	Government Appraisal (GA): 116.4 (+7.0)	Society Appraisal (SA): 106.3 (+6.8)

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

Release date	17/8/17	5/9/17	14/9/17	3/10/17	12/10/17	*7/11/17*	*Latest change^[14]*
Cut-off date	13/8/17	27/8/17	10/9/17	24/9/17	8/10/17	*29/10/17*	--
Public Sentiment Index (PSI)	106.0	109.2	114.4	107.2	109.0	*116.7*	*+7.7*
Government Appraisal (GA)	107.6	110.2	111.8	106.1	109.4	*116.4*	*+7.0*
Rating of CE	59.0	60.2	59.0	57.4	59.6	*62.0*	*+2.4*
Net approval rate of CE	15%	14%	15%	7%	10%	*20%*	*+10%*
Mean value of people’s satisfaction with SARG	2.8	3.0	3.0	2.9	2.9	*3.1*	*+0.2*
Mean value of people’s trust in SARG	3.1	3.1	3.2	3.0	3.1	*3.2*	*+0.1*
Society Appraisal (SA)	96.0	99.2	106.9	99.6	99.5	*106.3*	*+6.8*
People’s satisfaction with political condition	2.2	2.1	2.4	2.1	2.3	*2.3*	--
Weighting index of political condition	0.30^[13]	0.30^[13]	0.30^[13]	0.30^[13]	0.30^[13]	*0.30^[13]*	--
People’s satisfaction with economic condition	2.9	3.0	3.0	3.0	3.0	*3.1*	*+0.1*
Weighting index of economic condition	0.34^[13]	0.34^[13]	0.34^[13]	0.34^[13]	0.34^[13]	*0.34^[13]*	--
People’s satisfaction with livelihood condition	2.5	2.6	2.8	2.6	2.6	*2.7*	*+0.2*
Weighting index of livelihood condition	0.36^[13]	0.36^[13]	0.36^[13]	0.36^[13]	0.36^[13]	*0.36^[13]*	--

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

[14] 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 116.7 can be considered as among the best 13% across the past 20 years or so, while the GA and SA scores of 116.4 and 106.3 can be considered as among the best 14% and 34% respectively.

Commentary

Note: The following commentary was written by Research Manager of POP, Frank Lee.

The purpose of our ranking of political figures is to show the changing political ecology by studying the ups and downs of people’s familiarity with these figures over time. According to our latest survey, Carrie Lam is now the most visible political figure in Hong Kong. Leung Chun-ying ranks 2nd while Donald Tsang ranks 3rd. Compared to 5 months ago, 9 people remain on the “top 10” list. Anson Chan who ranked 10th last time has fallen out of the list after dropping to the 15th position. She is replaced by Starry Lee who has gone up from the 13th place to occupy the 10th place. The ups and downs within the latest list should be good reflections of our changing political environment. If we would like to focus on long term development, we can use the overall rankings accumulated over five years. Figures show that Leung Chun-ying, Leung Kwok-hung, Carrie Lam, Donald Tsang and Regina Ip are people’s most familiar political figures in the long run. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of “people’s most familiar political figures” is based on our surveys which requested respondents to name local political figures without prompting. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings. In other words, those high on the list may not be the most supported figures, while those lower may have a different ranking if we use a prompting method. However, those who scored best in unprompted surveys are no doubt the most well-known political figures in Hong Kong.

Future Release (Tentative)

November 14, 2017 (Tuesday) 12pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials,
Second follow-up survey of Policy Address

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) (1992-2017)
Online chart: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2017)
Online table: PSI (per release) (2012 – 2017)
Online table: PSI (per month) (1992-2017)
Online table: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2017)