That was the “one factor that just kept showing up again and again,” Ms. Mettler said of the data she describes in a recent book, “The Government-Citizen Disconnect.”

People who strongly dislike welfare were significantly less likely to feel government had provided them with opportunities, or to feel government officials cared what they thought, regardless of how much they’d relied on government programs themselves.

“Their attitudes about welfare end up being a microcosm for them of government,” Ms. Mettler said. “They look at how they think welfare operates, and if they see that as unfair, they think: ‘This is basically what government is. Government does favors for undeserving people, and it doesn’t help people like me who are working hard and playing by the rules.’ ”

Her surveys did not define the word “welfare.” So it’s unclear if people who say they strongly dislike the program were envisioning the cash transfers now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or if they had in mind a broader collection of programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or food stamps) that help the poor.

The slippery definition of the word is part of what has made it so politically potent. Whatever programs people attached to it in their minds, Ms. Mettler’s data suggests that people who have used, say, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and veteran’s disability payments over the course of their lives may be more influenced by their dislike of something they haven’t used than by their experiences with the programs they have.

For perspective, in historical data Ms. Mettler has collected, this is how usage of welfare cash assistance actually compares in scale with some of these other programs: