Political Science, Department of
Date of this Version
2019
Citation
The Journal of Politics, volume 82, number 2. Published online January 21, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1086/706889
Abstract
Folk wisdom has long held that people become more politically conservative as they grow older, although several empirical studies suggest political attitudes are stable across time. Using data from the Michigan Youth-Parent So- cialization Panel Study, we analyze attitudinal change over a major portion of the adult life span. We document changes in party identification, self-reported ideology, and selected issue positions over this time period and place these changes in context by comparing them with contemporaneous national averages. Consistent with previous research but con- trary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, sug- gesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.
Comments
2020 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.