The Latest Pew Forum Survey
March 14, 2011, 9:10 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
I have two questions:
1. Would it be so hard to include a question or two that picks out the intensity with which a respondent holds a position, along with the content of that position? It seems to me that intensity is the most important factor for political analysis.
2. I still am looking for a good analysis of how people, and why people, change their minds on moral-political issues. Is it actually because of the arguments? Or is it something else–maybe sense of being part of a broader cultural-moral shift? Or possibly, television and movies–narratives that embed particular views? Have the culture wars changed anything? Sometimes it seems as if we are all caught in some sort of moral and social tsunami.
Cathy, I don’t know about an answer to question No. 1, although I know some surveys occasionally ask about intensity.
On Question No. 2, Putnam and Campbell in “American Grace” found that, perhaps not surprisingly, people tend to change their religious affiliation (or congregation within a denomination) to match their political views rather than having their political views altered by their religious teachings. Alas…
I saw this column at Religion & Science Today as well, which raises issues of social conformity that have been studied elsewhere:
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2011/03/14/how-quickly-can-our-opinions-about-something-be-changed-by-the-views-of-other-people/
If someone were to ask me to respond to a poll like this one, I would decline on the grounds that any answer I gave within the limits defined would be neither false nor true, would be at best superficial and would, here and there, also be silly.
It’s interesting that views on abortion have ‘bounced back’ to where they were previously, such that a majority are in favor of abortion rights again.
If the number of abortions continues to decline, perhaps that would indicate that the public is not as concerned about the legality/availability of abortion.
David Brooks’ new book, “The Social Animal,” proposes an answer to Cathleen, second question. Thomas Nagel’s review of it in yesterday’s NYTimes Book Review section is right on target, in my view. But the Brooks approach does seem to be in the air. Part of it seems to be motivated by the commitment some scholars have to an ontology that has no room for any strong sense of human freedom.
David, thanks for that insight from Putnam and Campbell. I’ve often wondered whether – and hypothesized, in that gut-feeling sort of way – our political sensibilities frame our religious sensibilities much more so than the other way around (although it probably works in both directions).
1. There is a method for measuring intensity. However, if my recollection serves, it cannot be incorporated into a survey of this type as it involves a different kind of measure. For example, you would have to measure the degree of time and the emotion that is evoked say for example on questions such as government overspending, intrusion, etc.
Of course, limited government and a libertarian, individualistic impulse is a deep current in American culture and can and has be easily demagogued and exploited for political objectives. The Tea Party is simply the latest incarnation but there have been others on the left as well. (e.g. opposition to Patriot Act called on a similar cultural reflex against government intrusion and right to privacy – ditto for abortion rights).
Prior to the last election, intensity would have been strong among the Tea Party. Now that they have institutional representation and a political voice, it is undertsandable that intensity and fervor is reduced.
2. That is the million dollar question. My guess is that it has to do to experience and exposure to those who have had experience with the kind of thing you oppose. It is a lot harder to be opposed to gay rights when you actually have a relationship to someone who has gone through it or is expericencing it. Or alternatively when you see the actual effect that infidelity or promiscuity has on people, you are less likely to see it as “liberating”. Hence the movement (at least in my observation) of so many young people to “traditional” views on these matters.
“It is a lot harder to be opposed to gay rights when you actually have a relationship to someone who has gone through it or is expericencing it.”
Unquestionably.
“Would it be so hard to include a question or two that picks out the intensity with which a respondent holds a position…?”
It seems they attempted: in the first chart, they offered the option to the respondent of merely “Frustrated” or the more intense “Angry”.
As for “Anger” subsiding between Sep 2010 and today, surely most of the reduction is due to the election, after September, of a vast tide of fiscal conservatives who are now being given the benefit of the doubt regarding their taking the steps believed necessary to assuage that anger. If these newly elected politicians fail to restore fiscal sanity, we can expect the “Anger toward Federal Government” to once again rise.
For an interesting take on your second question, check out this book: The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
http://www.amazon.com/Honor-Code-Moral-Revolutions-Happen/dp/0393071626
“Whatever happened when these immoral practices ceased, it wasn’t, so it seemed to me, that people were bowled over by new moral arguments … Dueling was always murderous and irrational; foot binding was always painfully crippling; slavery was always an assault on the humanity of the slave.” What was needed in each of those cases, he suggests, was the awakening of a nation’s sense of honor, an awakening that caused people actually to act.”
Further to George D’s second point.
Blatant and self-serving hypocrisy is a great teacher.
When people start to question the attitude of a church that is so adamantly against gay marriage, but does little or nothing to “protect the sanctity of marriage” by fighting to tighten or even eliminate the loose laws surrounding divorce, then they can see the hypocrisy (or self-protecting deflections by certain closeted ecclesiastics) of being against gay marriage.
When people observe the prevalence of the “nudge nudge, wink wink” attitude of a church regarding “Catholic divorce,” i.e., annulment, then they start to question the whole attitude of that church toward their divorced and remarried constituents.
When people see the flat out wrongness of a church’s position against various aspects of civil rights and equal protection for LGBT people, while constantly weeping and wailing about the increasing push-back to tax breaks, rights and privileges granted to these same religious institutions, they start to question the validity of religious resistance to these civil rights and equal protections.
When people see the utter mendacity revealed in the actuality of how “hate the sin but love the sinner” is played out in and by churches, they start to question the underlying religiosity behind that canard.
And on and on.
Cathy –
I don’t remember if Elliot Aronson goes into intensity of opinion in any of the editions of his “The Social Animal” (not to be confused with the recent David Brook’s book by the same name). But he has some fascinating research to report.
For instance, it seems that while we do agree generally with the people in our own groups (e.g., religious and political groups) we actually do not share as many beliefs with them as we assume. In other words, there is more diversity in in-groups than the members think there is. Further, we tend to think *more* like our opponents than we are inclined to think we do. In other words, we are less like “us” than we think, and more like “them” than we think.
The worst thing he reports is that once a person has declared his opinion publicly it takes extreme psychological pressure to get the person to change his mind. Often it seems it is impossible. In other words, blogs are pretty useless.
I just wonder right now if the severity of the nuclear failure in Japan is scary enough to get those who now accept nuclear energy to at least look at its problems objectively.
At any rate, the Aronson book might cover what you’re looking for. (Sorry, I can’t find my copies to check out the indexes.)
“2. I still am looking for a good analysis of how people, and why people, change their minds on moral-political issues.”
I agree with George D that the answer to this question boils down to experience and self-interest rather than theoretical argument. In Michigan you see many folks whose parents were pro-labor liberals who went into business for themselves and adopted Chamber-of-Commerce conservatism.
I don’t think that’s necessarily bad or hypocritical. It simply means that you see the problem from another angle. The problem comes in when you’re so entrenched in your own self-interest that your goal is to stack the deck in favor of yourself without regard for your neighbor.
Cathy –
I just checked out Aronson’s newer “Mistakes Were Made”. It seems to be more what you’re looking for. He’s a winner of the Am. Psych. Assn. William James award for lifetime achievement, so I assume we can trust him. I ordered myself a copy :-)
Well, you can’t trust me. That should have be the ” Association for Psychological Science”, not the APA.
Digby Baltzell, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist, who studied WASPs (particularly in Philadelphia, and is credited with inventing the term) pointed to (as I remember) all those good Philadelphia Quakers who, as they rose in wealth and status in the 19th century, became Episcopalians. That’s probably not quite what you were looking for, but I toss it in anyway.
“Change their minds” is off the mark, in my view. Think back 15 years ago — did you have an actual, focused opinion on gay marriage? I didn’t — I wasn’t asked to. When there is no particular “churn” on a given issue, most opinions are just default views informed by the status quo.
You get a lot in this world by asking for it. Once you do start asking the question and someone actually does have to answer, and, perforce, think, you narrow the number of people who respond without having thought about the issue and are simply following the status quo.
The second factor is, most people are unwilling to spend a lot of social capital (buck the trend) over something that does not personally affect them. They will naturally move in the same direction as the overall trend even if they could really go either way.