Liberal Political Attitudes Research Articles

Concept creepers: Individual differences in harm-related concepts and their correlates

Research on ‘concept creep’ argues that harm-related concepts such as abuse, bullying, prejudice, and trauma have expanded their meanings in recent decades. Theorists have suggested that this semantic expansion may have mixed implications. Broadened concepts might problematize harmful behavior that was previously tolerated but might also make people over-sensitive and fragile. Two studies using American MTurk samples (Ns = 276, 309) examined individual differences in the breadth of people's concepts of harm and explored their correlates. Study 1 found reliable variations in concept breadth that were consistent across four disparate harm-related concepts. As predicted, people with broader concepts tended to endorse harm-based morality, liberal political attitudes, and high empathic concern. Contrary to prediction, younger people did not have broader concepts. Study 2 replicated the association between concept breadth and liberalism and extended the empathy finding by showing that concept breadth was associated with sensitivity to injustice toward others but not the self. In this study, people holding broader concepts were younger and tended to feel more vulnerable and entitled. These findings indicate that holding broader concepts of harm may have mixed implications.

Disgust as embodied loss aversion

ABSTRACTA quickly expanding literature has examined the link between physical disgust and morality. This article critically integrates the existing evidence and draws the following conclusions: First, there is considerable evidence that experimentally induced disgust and cleanliness influence moral judgment, but moderating variables and attributional processes need to be considered. Second, moral considerations have substantial effects on behavioural concomitants of disgust, such as facial expressions, economic games and food consumption. Third, while disgust involves a conservation concern, it can manifest itself in both liberal and conservative political attitudes. Overall, disgust can be considered to form part of a behavioural loss aversion system aimed at protecting valuable resources, including the integrity of one’s body. Recommendations are offered to investigate the role of disgust more rigorously in order to fully capture its role in moral life.

Not All Education is Equally Liberal: The Effects of Science Education on Political Attitudes

Education stands as a potent predictor of political attitudes; however, the underlying mechanisms and moderators of this relationship are not well-understood. We hypothesize that the liberalizing effect of education is moderated by discipline, and that the scientific ethos that serves to guide empirical inquiries facilitates the development of more liberal political attitudes via concerns about fairness and equality. As predicted, being educated in a science-related discipline, as opposed to a non-science discipline, was associated with greater political liberalism; importantly, this effect could not be accounted for by self-selection (Study 1). Furthermore, concerns about fairness and equality, as captured by an individual’s social dominance orientation, mediated the relationship between studying science and political liberalism (Study 2). Study 3 replicated these findings and attest to their generalizability. Study 4 directly assessed the underlying mechanism, endorsement of the scientific ethos, and replicated the mediational model; those who endorsed the scientific ethos more strongly reported more liberal political attitudes, and this was mediated by their lower social dominance orientation.

Captains of Industry and Masters of Thought: The Entrepreneur and the Tradition of Italian Liberal Economists from Francesco Ferrara to Sergio Ricossa

The essay deals with five eminent Italian economists and their positions on the theory and practice of entrepreneurship over the span of a century and half: from Francesco Ferrara’s early writings in the eighteen forties, to the works of Vilfredo Pareto, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi and finally Sergio Ricossa in the nineteen eighties. Although they all worked in very different scientific, institutional and historical contexts, these five economists combined their liberal political attitudes in a similar way with a strong inclination towards unfettered markets and private entrepreneurship. In particular, they shared an assessment of the superiority of entrepreneurial capitalism, not only over socialism or mixed economic systems, but also compared with managerial capitalism. In their works, the entrepreneur is the true instigator of economic development: for his ability to innovate, his alertness to profit opportunities, and his talent for leadership from the economic and social points of view. Nevertheless, some of these Italian economists identified in the very entrepreneurial function some elements of economic instability, and thus they also dedicated particular attention to institutional recipes to mitigate or regulate entrepreneurs’ exuberant behaviors.

Spiritual Liberals and Religious Conservatives

While church and state are officially separated in many Western nations, there is nonetheless a great deal of overlap between the religious beliefs and political orientations of individual citizens. Religious individuals tend to be more conservative, placing a greater emphasis on order, obedience, and tradition. While many religious movements emphasize conservative values, there also exists a tradition of religious thought associated with equality, universalism, and transcendence—values more in line with political liberalism. The current study examined whether these divergent political orientations relate to the distinction between religiousness and spirituality. Political orientation, spirituality, and religiousness were assessed in two large community samples (Study 1: N = 590; Study 2: N = 703). Although spirituality and religiousness were positively correlated, they displayed divergent associations with political orientation: conservatives tended to be more religious, while liberals tend to be more spiritual. Experimentally inducing spiritual experiences similarly resulted in more liberal political attitudes.

Left-Right identification and education in Europe: A contingent relationship

In the American research tradition, education has long been argued to push one toward a liberal political ideology. Traditionally, education has been associated with the upper classes of society and thereby with a more right-wing, conservative political ideology. Recent research demonstrates an inconsistent relationship between the ideological leaning of various political attitudes and education. This article reviews current theory on education and ideology and finds three perspectives dominate the literature: self-interest theses, developmental theses and socialization theses. Self-interest theories follow the traditional association of education with the upper classes and thereby with right-wing ideology. Developmental theses argue that education contributes to liberal political attitudes by stimulating cognitive development and expanding an individual's perspective. Socialization theses argue that education contributes to political attitudes by social learning processes. A specific example of a socialization perspective is the core values thesis. This thesis argues that education propagates the transmission of a society's core values. To this thesis, I add that an individual's personality is important in this process. As such I test a three-way interaction which provides support for the modified core values thesis: personality and context interact to influence the ideological leaning of our political attitudes.

The primacy of local interests and press freedom in Hong Kong: A survey study of professional journalists

Premised on the argument that articulating, representing, and defending local interests is one of the normative roles for the news media, this study examines what we call the primacy of local interests to the Hong Kong media and how concern with local interests relates to the politics of press freedom in the city. More specifically, on issues involving conflict of interests between the local society and its sovereign country, most Hong Kong media have demonstrated their willingness to stand by the local society even though it could mean a need to directly confront China.This study further draws on a representative journalist survey to illustrate how, in terms of Hong Kong journalists’ belief system, an orientation toward local interests is tied to liberal political attitudes, beliefs in the media’s adversarial role, and perceptions of media self-censorship. The analysis suggests how various kinds of attitudes and beliefs may cluster together to serve as an important force counteracting the pressure to conform to the power center. Implications of the findings and the generality of the notion of the primacy of local interests are discussed.

Understanding General Distrust of Corporations

Organizational research on trust and distrust has focused mainly on interpersonal relationships within organizations or impressions people have about specific companies. Less is known about people's attitudes toward all corporations (ie, as institutions). This article describes a theory of distrust toward corporations, how this attitude forms and how its study can contribute to organizational research. A corporate distrust scale was developed and shown to have favorable psychometric properties and nomological validity. People who scored higher on corporate distrust were higher on general cynicism, organization-specific cynicism, negative affectivity and liberal political attitudes. Corporate distrust correlated negatively with interpersonal trust, positive attitudes toward human nature and belief in a just world. The article suggests that the construct can be used in future research on beliefs about the corporate world.

‘A foolish young man, who can perhaps, be straightened out in his thinking’: The Brian cooper sedition case

In late 1960 Brian Leonard Cooper was arrested in Sydney and charged with sedition. Formerly employed in the Cooperative Section of the Department of Native Affairs in the territory of Papua and New Guinea, it was alleged that he had incited a number of local men in Madang to violently expel the Australians from the territory. A young man with liberal political views and progressive attitudes toward race relations, he was an outsider and vulnerable to exploitation by political opportunists. This article considers the period leading up to his arrest and the ways that his prosecution benefited those with a vested interest in his downfall.

Sex-Role Reversal and Clinical Judgment of Mental Health

The separation between nonconformist lifestyles and mental disorders plays a central role in behavioral therapeutic orientations, where emphasis is put on the client's definition of the problem, and in existential and humanistic orientations, which encourage the development of the client's individuality. In the present study, 621 psychotherapists and students intending to practice psychotherapy ranked the mental state of a male client suffering from social phobia related to examination situations. Half of the subjects received a case history of a law intern (married to a teacher), suffering from social phobia related to the oral bar. The other half received a case history of a student in a teachers' college (married to a lawyer) suffering from social phobia related to being tested in teaching a class. The mental state of the latter has been perceived as significantly more severe than that of the former. This difference in perception was not related to the subject's sex, professional experience, and the frequency of a similar client in their practice. Results are discussed in the context of the liberal political attitudes and the secular orientation of the subjects.

The Political Distinctiveness of Young Professionals: "Yuppies" or "New Class"?

It has been widely suggested in the media that yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) are becoming a major cultural and political sector of modern society. The distinctive nature of their social and political views is attributed to a fairly unique combination of liberal political views and conservative economic attitudes. They are also thought to have little political involvement and to place a strong emphasis on individual welfare. Using Dutch social survey data, it is found that although yuppies hold more liberal political attitudes than non-yuppies, there is no evidence that they are more conservative on economic matters, less politically involved or place a stronger emphasis on individual prosperity. More restricted definitions of the term yuppie do not affect these results. Besides these analyses of single political and economic attitudes, an additional analysis was conducted to trace possible differences in attitudinal patterns between yuppies and non-yuppies. No such differences have been found, however. It is argued that, instead of yuppies being a specific social group, they are part of a much broader category of young, left-of-center professionals who, in line with new class theories, hold liberal political attitudes.

A Test of Political Bias in Scholars' Preference for Measuring Fiscal Strain

We hypothesized that specialists' preference for measuring fiscal strain by using environmental/socioeconomic indicators would correlate with liberal political attitudes, and preference for governmental/fiscal indicators would correlate with conservative political attitudes. Reasons for the hypothesis are offered. Data are analyzed from a survey of authors of journal articles about fiscal strain, but no such correlations emerge. This evidence that specialists' preferences for measuring fiscal strain are not grounded in political attitudes provides a measure of reassurance about social scientists studying fiscal strain.

Understanding farm operator opposition to government regulation of agricultural chemicals and Pharmaceuticals: The role of social class, objective interests, and ideology

AbstractThis study seeks to identify the social factors related to opposition to government regulation of agricultural chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Analysis of data from a 1982 survey of farm operators in New York State shows that, in contrast to much of the literature that represents farmers as being almost universally opposed to regulation, farm operators' orientations toward government regulation of these substances vary considerably. Indicators of the class status or position of farm operators were found to be directly related to opposition to regulation. Willingness to assume risk and the importance placed by farm operators on making profit were also directly related to opposition to regulation, while farm men's off-farm work, cynicism toward agribusiness, non-economic orientation toward agriculture, perceptions of potential side effects of agricultural chemicals and drugs, and liberal political attitudes were inversely related to opposition to regulation. The results of a multivariate analysis suggest that farmer opposition to government regulation of agricultural chemicals is primarily due to farmer ideology and has little relationship with whether farmers actually use these chemicals.

Cultural Capital and the Liberal Political Attitudes of Professionals: Comment on Brint

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentary and DebateCultural Capital and the Liberal Political Attitudes of Professionals: Comment on BrintMichele LamontMichele Lamont Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 92, Number 6May, 1987 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/228673 Views: 23Total views on this site Citations: 29Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1987 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Mehmet Şükrü NAR EĞİTİM, İDEOLOJİ, DEMOKRASİ İLE OY VERME DAVRANIŞI ARASINDAKİ İLİŞKİ: TÜRKİYE ÖRNEĞİ, Mecmua (Sep 2021).https://doi.org/10.32579/mecmua.990437Marko Grdešić The Strange Case of Welfare Chauvinism in Eastern Europe, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 53, no.33 (Sep 2020): 107–122.https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2020.53.3.107Abel François, Cal Le Gall, Raul Magni Berton Why do academics oppose the market economy? Sophistication and perception of market failures, French Politics 17, no.33 (May 2019): 228–256.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-019-00088-4Amy C. Alexander, Ronald Inglehart, Christian Welzel Emancipating Sexuality: Breakthroughs into a Bulwark of Tradition, Social Indicators Research 129, no.22 (Oct 2015): 909–935.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1137-9Christian Welzel Evolution, Empowerment, and Emancipation: How Societies Climb the Freedom Ladder, World Development 64 (Dec 2014): 33–51.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.05.016Magne Flemmen The Politics of the Service Class, European Societies 16, no.44 (Jul 2013): 543–569.https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2013.817597Harald Schoen Soziologische Ansätze in der empirischen Wahlforschung, (Aug 2014): 169–239.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-08240-6_6Harald Schoen Soziologische Ansätze in der empirischen Wahlforschung, (Aug 2014): 169–239.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-05164-8_6Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart Evolution, Empowerment and Emancipation: How Societies Ascend the Utility Ladder of Freedoms, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2013).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2373157Amy C. Alexander, Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart Rising Support for Reproductive Freedoms: Emancipatory Breakthroughs into a Bulwark of Tradition, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2013).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2373158Job C van den Berg, Hilde Coffé Educational and class cleavages in voting behaviour in Belgium: The effect of income, EGP class and education on party choice in Flanders and Wallonia, Acta Politica 47, no.22 (Dec 2011): 151–180.https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2011.34Neil Gross, Ethan Fosse Why are professors liberal?, Theory and Society 41, no.22 (Jan 2012): 127–168.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9163-yAyse Güveli, Ruud Luijkx, Harry B.G. Ganzeboom Patterns of intergenerational mobility of the old and new middle classes in a post-industrial society: Netherlands 1970–2006, Social Science Research 41, no.22 (Mar 2012): 224–241.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.11.002Donald Rosdil Civic Culture, Sub-cultures, Non-traditionalism and Progressive Policy, Urban Studies 48, no.1616 (Dec 2011): 3467–3486.https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098010396236Jeroen van der Waal, Peter Achterberg, Dick Houtman, Willem de Koster, Katerina Manevska ‘Some are more equal than others’: economic egalitarianism and welfare chauvinism in the Netherlands, Journal of European Social Policy 20, no.44 (Oct 2010): 350–363.https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928710374376Miguel Caínzos, Carmen Voces Class Inequalities in Political Participation and the ‘Death of Class’ Debate, International Sociology 25, no.33 (May 2010): 383–418.https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580909360298Tally Katz-Gerro New Middle Class and Environmental Lifestyle in Israel, (May 2009): 197–215.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9938-0_11Ayse Güveli, Ariana Need, Nan Dirk de Graaf The Rise of `New' Social Classes within the Service Class in The Netherlands, Acta Sociologica 50, no.22 (Jun 2016): 129–146.https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699307077655AyŞe Güveli, Ariana Need, Nan Dirk de Graaf Socio-political, cultural and economic preferences and behaviour of the social and cultural specialists and the technocrats. Social class or education?, Social Indicators Research 81, no.33 (Aug 2006): 597–631.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-006-9000-7Carrie Yodanis A Place in Town, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35, no.33 (Jul 2016): 341–366.https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241606286818Clem Brooks, Paul Nieuwbeerta, Jeff Manza Cleavage-based voting behavior in cross-national perspective: evidence from six postwar democracies, Social Science Research 35, no.11 (Mar 2006): 88–128.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2004.06.005PETER ACHTERBERG, DICK HOUTMAN Why do so many people vote 'unnaturally'? A cultural explanation for voting behaviour, European Journal of Political Research 45, no.11 (Jan 2006): 75–92.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2005.00291.xHerman G. Van de Werfhorst, Nan Dirk de Graaf The sources of political orientations in post‐industrial society: social class and education revisited, The British Journal of Sociology 55, no.22 (Jun 2004): 211–235.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00016.xDick Houtman Lipset and “working-class” authoritarianism, The American Sociologist 34, no.1-21-2 (Mar 2003): 85–103.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-003-1008-8Peter Achterberg, Dick Houtman Het spook van de rechtse arbeidersklasse, Sociologie 50, no.11 (Mar 2003): 8–25.https://doi.org/10.1347/sogi.50.1.8.11328Charles Kurzman, Lynn Owens The Sociology of Intellectuals, Annual Review of Sociology 28, no.11 (Aug 2002): 63–90.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.140745CARRIE L. 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The Development of Political Reasoning

This discussion explores a striking correspondence between conservative, liberal, and egalitarian political attitudes and the three upper stages in Kohlberg’s schema of moral development. In the conte

"New-Class" and Cumulative Trend Explanations of the Liberal Political Attitudes of Professionals

Recent discussions of political divisions in American society have sometimes highlighted the rise of a "new class" of salaried professionals and technically trained managers. New-class theorists have depicted these "knowledge workers" as engaged in a contest for power and status with traditionally powerful business elites. However, the liberal attitudes of knowledge workers may also be interpreted as the result of a conjunction of several general trends in American society that have had little to do with class antagonisms. According to this paper, even though left-of-center attitudes are not uncommon in the salaried professional categories, these attitudes tend to be more ferormist than antibusiness in character. Such dissent as exists is concentrated in particular occupational, cohort, and sectoral categories and has varied considerably over time. Only the younger specialists in social science and arts-related occupations beging to fit the image of an "oppositional intelligentsia" used by the theorists to characterize the new class at large. The data are more consistent with cumulative-trend explanations of upper-white-collar liberalism and dissent. Nevertheless, the consistent net association of the key new-class category, the higher levels of education, with political liberalism leaves room for continued thinking about political cultural conflic within a new-class framework.

Sex-role attitudes, identities, and political ideology

This study examines whether sex-role identities and attitudes toward sex roles are part of a more general liberal—conservative dimension of political ideology. Survey data are analyzed from two independent random samples of Indiana University students in 1974–1975. Sex-role attitudes are measured by two scales, dealing with evaluations of the traditional sex-based division of labor and levels of sex-stereotyping of various tasks. The Bem Sex Role Inventory is used to measure respondents' sex-role identities. Those who score more liberal or flexible on each measure of sex-role attitudes are also very likely to hold liberal political attitudes. These correlations are strong and consistent enough to indicate that sex-role attitudes fit into a more general liberal—conservative ideology, at least among college students. Correlations between sex-role identities and political attitudes are much weaker. Among men, liberal political attitudes are associated with a more flexible (androgynous) sex-role identity; among women, in contrast, liberal political attitudes are related more consistently to a more traditionally masculine sex-role identity.