Aging Effects and Generational Differences in Social Welfare Attitude Constraint in the Mass Public

Abstract

T wo prominent heuristic forces prevailing in both scholarly social science research and commentary during the past two decades include arguments over the end of ideology and assessments of generation gap phenomena. Neither concern is amenable to simplistic treatment, yet much of the dialogue and evidence in both scholarly areas has developed in an atmosphere of mutual exclusiveness. Political scientists and sociologists have expressed a concern for both, yet the latter have been more uniquely concerned with generational differences; the ideology school includes a concern for normative issues whereas generation gap research tends to be either popular or more analytical; and divergent methodologies characterize each. As a result, we have only recently begun to build bridges between schools to investigate the necessary linkages between generational phenomena and issues of ideology. It is this potential linkage between two large, conflicting and amorphous schools of thought which serves as an initial motivating force for the research reported here. In oversimplified terms, concern over the end of ideology construct and more specifically, over the irrationality, inconsistency, and low awareness supposedly characteristic of mass publics in the United States resulted in a crystallizing body of research pointing to cognitive capabilities of the average citizen, attitude consistency, structural integration of belief systems, and issue voting.2 Although heated debate continues over various conceptualizations, types of measurement, and analysis techniques applied to the study of mass public belief systems3 and levels of