Political conservatism and its social environment: an appraisal of the American presidential election of 1972.

Abstract

Although common sense and popular belief hold that the white-collar class is more conservative politically and less liberal than the blue-collar class, researchers have found a negative relationship between social status and authoritarian traits, including political conservatism. The election of 1972 offered a unique opportunity to test the hypothesis that voters' preferences in each state for the more conservative candidate would be negatively, state by state, related to demographic indicators of social status (per capita income, educational attainment), positively related to social deficiencies of the type associated with authoritarian tendencies (high school dropout rate, highway death rate, murder rate), and negatively related to Peace Corps volunteer rate, considered as a negative indicator of authoritarianism. Correlations were in the hypothesized direction and were significant ( p = .005; except for murder rate, p = .05). Analysis introducing partial control for the size of state population produced similar results, as did analysis correlating per capita income in major California counties with percentages of voters preferring the conservative candidate.