Introduction: The Search for Connections

Abstract

Connections between the facts of people's personal circumstances and their judgments about social and political issues are often murky or invisible. This seems counterintuitive. The nature of social issues is such that most people in a particular society possess some information about them and, if pressed, will be able to offer an opinion concerning them; it would seem reasonable to assume that these opinions reflect the individual's personal circumstances in some way. Similarly, if a set of events is to qualify as a “social issue” it must affect people, even if indirectly; it is thus to be expected that social issues would influence the interpretation of and behavior in people's personal lives. Yet researchers who make these assumptions are frequently surprised. What is the nature of the associations between the events in one's private life and one's attitudes about sociopolitical matters? How often do the abstractions of larger issues remain isolated from the concrete realities of daily existence, and what circumstances bring the abstract and the concrete into alignment?