HKU POP: Public Sentiment Index recovers slightlyBack

Since the figures released today by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong come from the last tracking survey on this topic conducted in 2012, 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, a chronology of major events as reported by the local newspapers over many years past can be found in the “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”. This may also 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 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 December 30, 2012, while that of the next round of release will be January 13, 2012. The tentative release date for the next release will be January 18, 2013 (Friday).

The PSI released by POP today shows that as of December 30, 2012, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 86.6, up 2.7 from early-December. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 90.4 and 91.2, up 2.1 and 1.9 respectively. Below shows the monthly average chart on PSI, GA and SA:

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

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

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

Edward Chit-Fai Tai, Senior Data Analyst of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “At the end of December, Hong Kong’s Public Sentiment Index has slightly recovered. However, because its reading was relatively low in early December, the monthly PSI reading for December is still lower than that of November. Looking back, the latest monthly PSI reading now stands at a similar level as that registered in December 2004 and August 2012, but the effect of the January 1st rallies can only be seen next time. 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 our ‘Opinion Daily’ .”

• January 18, 2013 (Friday) 1pm to 2pm

Please refer to the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk.

• Online resource: “PSI” methodological notes (Chinese Only)

• Online chart: PSI (per month) (1992-2012)

• Online table: PSI (per month) (1992-2012)

• Online table: PSI (per release) (7/2012 – 12/2012)