"Welfare" vs "Aid to The Poor"

More discussion of how wording affects polling results. Unfortunately, as Liberman has pointed out, none of this addresses the fundamental question of why. Why do the words "homosexual" and "welfare" cause more negative polling results than "Gay Men & Lesbians" and "aid to the poor"? My own weak attempt at a first pass answer (in the LL comments) is that "in both cases cited ("Homosexuals" vs. "Gay Men & Lesbians" & "welfare" vs. "caring for the poor"), the first, seemingly more controversial term is a single word and the second is a phrase. It may be the case that we silly humans find it easier to attach strong emotional semantics to a single lexical item. One could imagine a study that looked at the role syntactic heaviness plays in survey response."

It may also be the case that longer phrases are harder to categorize.

"Gay" vs "Homosexual"

Chris Good at The Atlantic contributes to the discussion that American opinion poll results about DADT are strongly tied to the wording used to describe the sexual orientation of the individuals affected. Money quote:

Marc has noted that there's a nomenclature issue at play: gays in the military poll a lot better as "gays" in the military, while people don't seem to like "homosexuals" serving as much. The above phenomenon in CNN's results probably furthers that point--personal opposition to "homosexual relationships" doesn't mean opposition to letting "people who are openly gay or lesbian" serve--but it's hard to see CNN's results not expressing a willingness, on the part of some, to put aside personal moral feelings in their support of a Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal.

Language Log recently discussed this same issue: Words and opinions.

Nate Silver' has also discussed the issue: Republicans are Conservative -- but are they this Conservative?