**************************************************************************************

Political Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1985, pp. 525-528.

WHAT OLD PEOPLE BELIEVE: Age, Sex, and Conservatism



John J. Ray (1)

An international range of 18 general population samples was examined to find the scale of conservatism /radicalism that correlated most highly with age. Items of a scale correlating 0.51 with age are presented. Sex was in general negligibly associated with ideology.

KEY WORDS: sex; age; conservatism; radicalism.

INTRODUCTION

Many demographic variables have political importance. The role of occupation and education has been discussed elsewhere (Ray, 1983a), so here the concentration will be on sex and age. The focus, however, will be on political ideology rather than on the vote. Voting statistics are normally readily available from commercial polling organizations.

Over the past 15 years, the present author has carried out a wide range of surveys in which multi-item scales for the measurement of conservatism were used. Information on age and sex was also normally gathered for each respondent, and the present paper is devoted to a summary of the resultant archive. Fuller details of sampling and scale items for each study can generally be obtained in the references given for each study. Scales to measure subtypes of conservatism as well as scales of overall conservatism are included. Only random samples of the community at large are mentioned. All samples were predominantly English-speaking.

RESULTS

It will be seen from Table I that a popular conception of women as being more conservative is not supported. Only 7 of the 31 correlations (biserial) with sex were above 0.10. This means that any relationship at all between sex and conservatism is negligible.

Greater age by contrast is fairly reliably a predictor of greater conservatism. The items of the scale that showed the greatest correlation with age are given in an appendix. It will be seen that what old people believe does sound rather fearsome.

Table 1. Correlations among Sex, Age, and Conservatism (a)

..........Sample.....................................Scale...................................Age...Sex.....N

1. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).........Political conservatism.........0.07....0.20...118
..........................................................Social conservatism............0.18 ...0.07
..........................................................Economic conservatism......0.16....0.21
......................................................... Moral conservatism.............0.35.....0.01
..........................................................Attitude to authority..............0.17...-0.04
..........................................................Balanced F..........................0.22.....0.03
2. Australia-wide (doorstep)..............Economic conservatism.....-0.04....-0.03..4554
..........................................................Social conservatism............0.45.....0.08
3. London, England (doorstep)..........Short conservatism scale...0.15.... -0.20...100
4. Glasgow, Scotland (doorstep).......Short conservatism scale...0.20......0.04...100
5. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).........Balanced F.........................0.39.... -0.07.....95
6. Johannesb. S. Afr. (doorstep)........Balanced F.........................0.30.... -0.04...100
7. Los Angeles, Calif. (doorstep).......Balanced F.........................0.37......0.14...101
8. N.S.W., Australia (postal)...............Balanced F.........................0.31....-0.05...172
9. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).........Short conservatism scale....0.42....-0.02...145
10. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).......General conservatism.........0.51.... -0.04...102
..........................................................Economic conservatism......0.31......0.09
..........................................................Attitude to authority.............0.44.... -0.09
11. N.S.W., Australia (postal).............Social conservatism............0.33.....0.06...377
..........................................................Moral conservatism.............0.39......0.16
..........................................................Economic conservatism.......0.07.... -0.04
12. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).......Balanced F..........................0.43.... -0.01...207
13. Los Angeles, Calif. (postal)..........General conservatism.........0.41......0.05....70
14. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).......General conservatism.........0.40......0.02...200
15. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).......General conservatism........ 0.26.... -0.07...100
16. Brisbane, Austr. (doorstep)..........Right-wing auth. (RWA)......0.20.....-0.17....84
...........................................................General conservatism........0.35.....-0.14
17. Sydney, Australia (doorstep).......Balanced F..........................0.18.... -0.06....99
..........................................................Attitude to authority.............0.28.....-0.06
..........................................................Authoritarianism...................0.17.....-0.07
18. Australia-wide (postal).................Neoconservatism................-0.05......0.05....95

(a) Sex is scored: 1 = male; 2 = female.

References for Table 1:

1. Ray (1973)
2. Ray and Wilson (1976)
3. Ray (1979)
4. Ray (1978)
5. Ray (1981a)
6. Ray (1980a)
7. Ray (1980b)
8. Ray and Bozek (1981)
9. Ray (1981b)
10. Ray (1981c)
11. Ray (1983a)
12. Ray (1980c)
13. Ray (1983b)
14. Ray (1984a)
15. Ray (1984b)
16. Ray (1985)
17. Ray (1984c)
18. Ray and Najman (1984)

REFERENCES

Eysenck, H. J. (1954). The Psychology of Politics, Routledge, London.

Lentz, T. E., Jr., et al. (1935). Manual for C-R Opinionnaire, Washington University Character Research Inst., St. Louis.

Ray, J.J. (1973) Dogmatism in relation to sub-types of conservatism: Some Australian data. European J. Social Psychology 3, 221-232.

Ray, J.J. (1978) Are Scottish nationalists authoritarian and conservative? European J. Political Research 6, 411-418.

Ray, J.J. (1979) How different are the Scots and English? Contemporary Review 234, 158-159.

Ray, J.J. (1980a) Racism and authoritarianism among white South Africans. Journal of Social Psychology, 110, 29-37.

Ray, J.J. (1980b) Authoritarianism in California 30 years later -- with some cross-cultural comparisons. Journal of Social Psychology, 111, 9-17.

Ray, J.J. (1980c) Authoritarianism and hostility. Journal of Social Psychology, 112, 307-308.

Ray, J.J. (1976) Do authoritarians hold authoritarian attitudes? Human Relations, 29, 307-325.

Ray, J.J. (1981b) Measuring achievement motivation by immediate emotional reactions. J. Social Psychology, 113, 85-93.

Ray, J.J. (1981c) The new Australian nationalism. Quadrant, 25(1-2), 60-62.

Ray, J.J. (1983) The workers are not authoritarian: Attitude and personality data from six countries. Sociology & Social Research, 67 (2), 166-189.

Ray, J.J. (1983b) A scale to measure conservatism of American public opinion. Journal of Social Psychology 119, 293-294.

Ray, J.J. (1984a) Attitude to abortion, attitude to life and conservatism in Australia. Sociology & Social Research 68, 236-246.

Ray, J.J. (1984b) Achievement motivation as a source of racism, conservatism and authoritarianism. Journal of Social Psychology 123, 21-28

Ray, J.J. (1984c). Half of all racists are Left-wing. Political Psychology, 5, 227-236.

Ray, J.J. (1985) Defective validity in the Altemeyer authoritarianism scale. Journal of Social Psychology 125, 271-272.

Ray, J.J. & Bozek, R.S. (1981) Authoritarianism and Eysenck's 'P' scale. Journal of Social Psychology, 113, 231-234.

Ray, J.J. & Najman, J.M. (1987) Neoconservatism, mental health and attitude to death. Personality & Individual Differences, 8, 277-279.

Ray, J.J. & Wilson, R.S. (1976) Social conservatism in Australia. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Sociology 12(3), 255-257.

APPENDIX

The items of the General Conservatism scale (Ray, 1981c).

1. Australia will not win respect in Asia by building up armed forces.
2. An occupation by a foreign power is better than war.
3. Patriotism and loyalty to one's country are more important than one's intellectual convictions and should have precedence over them.
4. A standing Army of 100,000 men or over is necessary for our defense at all times.
5. "My country right or wrong" is a saying that expresses a fundamentally dangerous attitude.
6. Treason and murder should be punishable by death.
7. The English-speaking countries have reached a higher state of civilization than any other country in the world and as a consequence have a culture which is superior to any other.
8. In taking part in any form of world organization, this country should make certain that none of its independence and power is lost.
9. Our treatment of criminals is too harsh: We should try to cure them, not punish them.
10. Certain religious sects whose beliefs do not permit them to salute the flag should either be forced to conform or else be abolished.
11. We should have complete freedom of speech even for those who criticize the law.
12. The death penalty for crime is barbaric and should be abolished.
13. People should be allowed to hold demonstrations in the streets without police interference.
14. It is best not to try to prohibit erotic and obscene literature and pictures by law, but rather to leave people free to follow their judgments and tastes in such matters.
15. When the dictator Mussolini made Italy's trains run on time, that at least was an important thing to achieve.

Agreement with items 1, 2, S, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 earns a low score. Agreement with the remaining items earns a high score. The reliability (alpha) of the scale was 0.80. The composition of the scale was influenced primarily by the Eysenck (1954) R scale and the Lentz (1935) C-R Opinionnaire.

(1) University of New South Wales, Australia.



POST-PUBLICATION ADDENDUM

Replication is one of the cornerstones of science. A new research result will normally require replication by later researchers before the truth and accuracy of the observation concerned is generally accepted. If a result is to be replicated, however, careful specification of the original research procedure is important.

In questionnaire research it has been my observation that the results are fairly robust as to questionnaire format. It is the content of the question that matters rather than how the question is presented (But see here and here). It is nonetheless obviously desirable for an attempted replication to follow the original procedure as closely as possible so I have given here samples of how I presented my questionnaires in most of the research I did. On all occasions, respondents were asked to circle a number to indicate their response.




Go to Index page for this site

Go to John Ray's "Tongue Tied" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Dissecting Leftism" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Australian Politics" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Gun Watch" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Education Watch" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Socialized Medicine" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Political Correctness Watch" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Greenie Watch" blog (Backup here or here)
Go to John Ray's "Food & Health Skeptic" blog (Backup here)
Go to John Ray's "Leftists as Elitists" blog (Not now regularly updated -- Backup here)
Go to John Ray's "Marx & Engels in their own words" blog (Not now regularly updated -- Backup here)
Go to John Ray's "A scripture blog" (Not now regularly updated -- Backup here)
Go to John Ray's recipe blog (Not now regularly updated -- Backup here or here)

Go to John Ray's Main academic menu
Go to Menu of recent writings
Go to John Ray's basic home page
Go to John Ray's pictorial Home Page (Backup here)
Go to Selected pictures from John Ray's blogs (Backup here)
Go to Another picture page (Best with broadband)