The focus of this study is the effect of personal experience on core values. Core values are thought to provide a stable foundation that strongly influences people's attitudes on public policy. Values, such as individualism and equality, are thought to be determined early in life and remain relatively resistant to change. Yet an important question concerns whether people's values change when their personal experiences challenge beliefs at the heart of these values.
The intellectual merit of this project focuses on the argument that common experiences that affect many people in a significant way can influence people's core beliefs and the values that derive from those beliefs. The recent recession is the longest since the Great Depression, and the high unemployment rate is accompanied by a high proportion of people who have been unemployed for more than six months. In April 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over 48.1% of the unemployed have been out of work for more than six months, a figure significantly greater than the rates in recent recessions. With so many people affected by the current economic conditions, this project examines whether the personal circumstances of long-term unemployment, combined with information about other's unemployment, have reduced support for people's belief in one central core value in American politics, individualism, "the belief that people should get ahead on their own hard work" (Feldman, 1988).
The broader impact of this study is to create a dataset that would be available to scholars interested in studying the impact of a significant personal experience, unemployment, on political attitudes.
" suggest that people's support for basic American beliefs can be influenced by both their own experiences and their social networks. In particular, this study shows that the experience of being unemployed, one's length of unemployment, and the employment status of one's family and friends can weaken beliefs in economic individualism, the belief that people who work hard are rewarded with economic success. Against an environment where many people had lost their jobs through economic forces beyond their control, the study found that one's length of unemployment and the number of friends who have been unemployed for more than six months increase the likelihood that people will locate responsibility for their own unemployment in systemic factors and away from their own responsibility. In turn, support for economic individualism is lower as respondents' number of unemployed friends increases, but only among respondents who see economic factors as the primary cause of their unemployment. The findings support a conclusion that one's personal experience of long-term unemployment, as well as one's association with other people unemployed for a long duration, influences how one perceives the role of the economic system upon unemployment and, consequently, one's support for economic individualism. These findings are significant in that the traditional view of values is that they are formed relatively early in life and are resistant to change as people get older. The analysis from this study suggests that major events influencing both one's own life, but also similarly the lives of one's family and members of one's social network can lead people to revisit their core beliefs. To the degree that these core values influence other related political attitudes, these results suggest a broader impact that the current economic downturn could produce major changes in the political landscape in the United States, especially concerning economic policy. Further testing of these conclusions will be possible once the final wave of this survey, funded from a related grant, is conducted in January 2012.
