Abstract
A central challenge for identifying core components of a belief system is examining the position of components within the structure of the entire belief system. We test whether operational (i.e., positions on issues) or symbolic (i.e., affective attachments to political groups and labels) components are most central by modeling a political belief system as a network of interconnected attitudes and beliefs. Across seven waves of representative panel data from New Zealand, we find that symbolic components are more central than operational components (ds range = 0.78-0.97). Symbolic components were also closer than operational components in the network to self-reported voting (d = −2.43), proenvironmental actions (ds = −1.71 and −1.63), and religious behaviors (d = −0.74). These findings are consistent with perspectives that emphasize the importance of symbolic politics in tying belief systems together and motivating behavior, and further the link between political belief system research and network science.
Highlights
Political belief systems lay at the heart of multiple disciplines including social psychology, political science, and sociology
Scholars from multiple disciplines over the last six decades have worked to identify if the operational components or symbolic components are most central to political belief systems
Replicated across multiple years, that symbolic components of the belief system were more central than operational components to the overall system and were closer to multiple types of politically relevant behavior
Summary
Political belief systems lay at the heart of multiple disciplines including social psychology, political science, and sociology. A deeper understanding of the central feature (or features) of political belief systems would inform people’s reactions to political events (Huddy, Mason, & Aarøe, 2015), and their positions on new policy proposals (Cohen, 2003; Malka & Lelkes, 2010) Given these implications, scholars from multiple disciplines over the last six decades have worked to identify if the operational components (i.e., positions on specific issues, such as government spending) or symbolic components (i.e., affective attachments to political groups and labels, such as ideological identification or party identification) are most central to political belief systems. This allows for the possible recognition of multiple central and peripheral constructs, as well as constructs that might be somewhere in the middle of the central–peripheral continuum
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