Gallup has released their annual lists of the most admired women and men for 2015. These are basically measures of name recognition, with The New York Times discussing the methodology:
The poll tends to reflect names of people who have recently appeared in news headlines, said Frank M. Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. Rather than choose from a list of names, poll respondents offer whichever comes to mind.
“It very much reflects who has been in the news, and who people can recall at a short period of time when an interviewer asks them,” Mr. Newport said.
The sitting president is generally the most admired man, and with all the publicity surrounding her Hillary Clinton has dominated the list for most admired woman in recent years. Here is this year’s list:
This is hardly meaningful other than as a test of who is in the news. While Hillary Clinton is well ahead, she was still only mentioned by thirteen percent of those responding. As usual, the sitting president is on top of the men’s list, with seventeen percent mentioning him. Pope Francis was next after Obama at five percent, and then we see the effects of this year’s presidential race. Donald Trump edged Bernie Sanders, which is inconsistent with the polls showing that Sanders would beat Trump by a landslide margin.
The list of women is less dominated by political leaders for obvious reasons, with Malala Yousafzai coming in second after Clinton. Sarah Palin is still in the minds of some conservatives, with her being mentioned by one percent. Elizabeth Warren was also in a group of five mentioned by one percent. I imagine that, considering how much Palin has been worshiped on the right, Warren is doing well to tie her in this type of poll which rewards name recognition over other attributes.