Are "Independents" Just Dumb?

In survey research, we worry a lot about no-opinion opinions.  That is, respondents who give an opinion without really having one, which is related (but distinct from) uninformed opinion.  And in that theme, there's this CBS News story that wonders who the heck are these "independents" that everyone is so worried about.

Why do we care about independents?  A CBS column by history professor Michael Kazin notes:

No group in American politics gets more respect than independent voters. Pundits and reporters probe what these allegedly moderate citizens think about this issue and that candidate, major party strategists seek the golden mean of messaging that will attract independents to their camp and/or alienate them from the opposing one. Presidential nominees and aides struggle to come up with phrases and settings that will soothe or excite them. But what if millions of independents are really just a confused and clueless horde, whose interest in politics veers between the episodic and the non-existent?

Elections, especially presidential elections, often settle on the swing voters, the self-styled "independents" who can be nudged, moved, shifted, or shoved toward one candidate or away from another.  Kazin notes that these "independents" tend to be accepting of a mishmash of political positions from the left and the right, from the Dems or from the GOPers.  As he puts it: "To a sympathetic eye, this result might connote a pleasant openness to contrasting opinions, perhaps a desire to give each group of partisans the benefit of the doubt. But I think it demonstrates a basic thoughtlessness."

This is nothing new.  Philip Converse wrote about this in 1964 in his seminal piece, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics."  Without getting too PhDweebish, Converse pointed out the inconsistencies in our ideological belief systems.  Later, folks dived into this and established, long ago, that a huge chunk of the American electorate (the "independents") held highly inconsistent beliefs.  Kazin reminds us of the infamous Lippmann/Dewey debates from the 1920s about whether the public was capable of understanding politics. 

It's an excellent piece.

If We Just Ask More Questions . . .

A study in the latest issue of Public Opinion Quarterly examines the nature of political ideology, throwing at the reader a mix of cool advanced statistical methods to come to a simple conclusion -- for a lot of folks the standard single-item ideology question on a traditional 7-point scale, from liberal to conservative, just doesn't work.

Yes, the political elite have become more partisan and ideological.  And yes, they've dragged a lot of the chattering class and even everyday people farther to the left or the right.  What this study finds is a whole lot of people still answer liberal on some policy questions and conservative on other policy questions, so for them the single-item ideological placement question fails to capture who they really are, what they really think.

Or, as the authors note in their conclusions:

Our results show that failing to account for the multidimensional nature of ideological preferences can produce inaccurate predictions of voting behavior for the plurality of Americans who do not call themselves liberal or conservative.

Their recommendation?  Ask more questions.  Don't rely only on that good old fashioned liberal-to-conservative question to classify people, because for those in the middle, it fails to capture what people really think and believe.  Add policy questions since people can sometimes be fiscal conservatives and social liberals, or some other mix.

What's the media angle here?  I think the fragmentation of the news media (see Fox vs MSNBC) is dragging a lot of people, kicking and screaming, into the same partisan divide elites began sharing many years ago.  Listen to Sean Hannity, for example, and you'll hear him push for a whole slate of consistent ideological beliefs across the spectrum.  I'd love to know if "talk radio conservatives" are more consistent in their ideological beliefs than "non-talk radio conservatives."  Ooooh, future study. 

Study specs: Clarke, H.D. & McCutcheon, A.L. (2009).  The nature of political ideology in the contemporary electorate.  Public Opinion Quarterly, 73, 679-703.

It's a Competitive Jungleand a Dangerous World

Where do our ideological preferences come from?  Why do we think of ourselves as a conservative or liberal? 

This study attempts to get at the psychological foundations of our "ideological affinities" and one of the keys to understanding this, they argue, is expertise.  Or, as they say:

In this study, we examined the role of expertise with respect to two pre-political worldviews, i.e., competitive-jungle beliefs and dangerous-world beliefs; and three ideological attitude systems, i.e., social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and the general left–right dimension.

Scary stuff, full of academic jargon and cruel-sounding labels. Let's break down the key terms:

• Competitive Jungle -- do you see the world as a ruthless, competitive place.  A jungle.  Dog eat dog.  Insert your favorite cliche here, but I think you get the idea.  Measured on a 13-item scale that includes such statements for agreement as "It’s a dog-eat-dog world where you have to be ruthless at times."  Told you, cliches even find their way into questionnaires.
• Dangerous World -- is the world a dangerous and threatening place?  Measured by a 10-item scale with such statements as "There are many dangerous people in our society who will attack somebody out of pure meanness, for no reason at all."  I'm scared just typing this.
• Social Dominance Orientation -- sixteen items with such statements as "Some groups of people are
  simply inferior to other groups" to tap how much you see dominance as a role in society.
• Right-wing Authoritarianism -- a 12-item index, including such gems as "Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children can learn" that attempts to measure, you got it, authoritarianism from the right (versus the left, but that's a big theoretical debate for another day).
• General left-right dimension -- just what it says, the classic ideology measure, but they ask two questions, one about social and one about economic issues, which is good.  The two are highly correlated and combined for an overall measure.
  
• Expertise -- Eleven factual questions of political knowledge, what people know, such as "What job or political office does Dick Cheney hold." 

Okay, I've spent more time than I should describing this, but at least I saved you the time of wading through the methods section and teasing it out yourself.  So what'd they find?  That expertise strengthens the relationship between the two pre-political worldviews of Competitive Jungle and Dangerous World beliefs.  So what?

Rather, the relationship between psychological variables and ideological affinity is notably stronger among those with an expert understanding of politics and abstract political ideas.  While experts have the information and understanding needed to choose ideological positions maximally consistent with their underlying needs and views of social life, those who lack political expertise appear to make ‘‘noisier’’ choices among the various ideological options on offer in any given political environment.

 Huh? 

Simply put, if I'm getting this right, people with little expertise struggle to align their worldviews with their political ideology.  But more broadly, the point is that political ideology is formed by people's needs and  worldviews, and expertise -- what people know -- plays a part in making these more consistent.

Of Liberals and Conservatives

Interesting Nicholas Kristof column in today's NYTimes that touches on some of the recent social science research on how liberals and conservatives differ (other than the obvious stuff, such as liking Obama).

He manages to get at selective exposure, political perceptions, moral values, and a host of other favorites in the social science arena, all in one quick column. Basically the argument is this: liberals and conservatives differ not only on the obvious political preferences but also in basic moral values. That isn't a surprise to the talk show blowhards, but it's deeper than they realize. Liberals like fairness and prevention of harm, conservatives focus on authority, loyalty, and "revulsion at disgust." And some of it is just plain weird. You can tell a conservative by the level of disgust registered at nasty smells or stepping on squishy things or using a public toilet.

For those of you who read the classic The Authoritarian Personality, some of this comes as no surprise. Then again, I'm fairly certain the classic book failed to mention toilets.

Kristof mentions a web site terribly busy today and hard to reach: www.yourmorals.org. Try again in a few days, once the post-NYTimes attention eases.

This all kinda fits something I blogged about a couple of days ago, how journalism needs to look to social science for fresh material, for intellectual scoops, for new ways of helping people understand the world.