Social attitudes and social status: A multivariate and multinational analysis

Abstract

The study was initiated against the background of the divergent results obtained when studying social class and social attitudes relationships. Because of the multidimensional nature of these constructs, the aim was to simultaneously investigate the associations between different aspects of social class and different aspects of sociopolitical attitudes, using adolescent samples ( N = 1136) from three different nations. Bivariate and multivariate (canonical) correlation analyses disclosed that (a) the relationships were in general monotonic and of the same type; the higher the social status, the higher the degree of ‘conservatism’, (b) the magnitude of the associations were most often low to moderate, and (c) the patterns of the bivariate and multivariate relationships showed low cross-national congruence. The results are discussed in the context of previous empirical outcomes and the Lipset thesis of ‘working-class authoritarianism’.