This is a continuation of our ongoing investigation of the development of social and political orientation across the life-span. The research builds upon our current study, a 50-year follow-up of the women who participated in the Bennington College studies of the 1930s, and it extends this research in a way that permits the investigation of a broader set of theoretical explanations for individual and social change. There are 2 primary aims: (1) to investigate the stability of individual socio-political orientations over the lifecourse, and (2) to investigate several socio-demographic explanations for changes in aggregate socio-political orientations over time. Specifically, we seek evidence for three separate, but not mutually exclusive explanations for social and individual change: cohort replacement or """"""""generational"""""""" explanations of observed changes in attitudes and behavior over time, historical or """"""""period"""""""" explanations of social and individual changes,d and life cycle or """"""""aging"""""""" explanations of individual changes.
These aims require the application of multivariate modeling strategies intended to permit the separation of age, period and cohort factors in life-span development of socio-political orientation. We propose to analyze 16 national election-year surveys conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research from 1952 to 1984. The data sets are nationally representative cross-sectional samples. In addition we propose to use three, three-wave panel studies in the national election study series: two 4-year panels (1956-1958-1960) and 1972-1974-1976) and one panel spanning the duration of the 1980 Presidential campaign. Using these data sets we investigate variation in five aspects of political orientations: (1) political efficacy and government responsiveness, (2) attitudes toward specific government policies, (3) orientations to socio-political groups, (4) political ideology, and (5) party identification. By supplementing our ongoing work on attitude change within our Bennington sample with a broad-based examination of the American public's political orientations over 30 years, we will substantially improve our ability to address the critical areas in which gaps exist in our current knowledge.
| Krosnick, J A; Alwin, D F (1989) Aging and susceptibility to attitude change. J Pers Soc Psychol 57:416-25 |
