A unified theory of value-based reasoning and U.S. public opinion
Goren, Paul and Schoen, Harald and Reifler, Jason and Scotto, Thomas and Chittick, William (2016) A unified theory of value-based reasoning and U.S. public opinion. Political Behavior, 38 (4). pp. 977-997. ISSN 0190-9320 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9344-x)
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Abstract
Public opinion research shows that American citizens utilize domain-specific political values to guide opinion formation in the key issue areas that comprise the American political agenda. One set of political values operates on economic welfare opinions, a different set of values applies to cultural issue positions, a third set shapes foreign policy preferences, and so on in other policy domains. Drawing on Shalom Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, this paper argues that two socially focused values—self-transcendence and conservation—guide opinion formation across all major policy domains. By contrast, the personally focused values of self-enhancement and openness-to-change should play a more limited role in preference formation. These hypotheses are tested using data from a novel 2011 national survey and the 2012 General Social Survey. The statistical results affirm expectations. We show that self-transcendence and conservation values predict scores on symbolic ideology, economic conservatism, racial conservatism, cultural conservatism, civil liberties, and foreign policy opinions. Self-enhancement and openness-to-change values play a modest role in shaping preferences.
ORCID iDs
Goren, Paul, Schoen, Harald, Reifler, Jason, Scotto, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4801-6821 and Chittick, William;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 57762 Dates: DateEvent30 December 2016Published6 May 2016Published Online1 May 2016AcceptedNotes: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9344-x Subjects: Political Science Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Government and Public Policy > Politics Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 12 Sep 2016 13:56 Last modified: 22 Nov 2024 01:11 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/57762