On Defining Normative Consistency

Abstract

Reanalysis of data on norms of role-assignment shows that between 1953 and 1976 mothers increasingly expressed the view that certain, traditionally sex-segregated, household tasks should be done by children of both sexes. Dividing the overall variance into variance due to substantive (attitudinal) effects and variance due to trends in attitude over time, we find that 61% of the trend variance is attributable to simple shift toward desegregation of tasks. The attitudinal variance is dominated by a tendency toward ideological consistency, that is, by a generalized belief either in segregated or in joint assignment of tasks. This accounts for 73% of the substantive variance. These simple conclusions are arrived at by taking a multiway frequency distribution, and instead of fitting the usual row, column and interaction effects, subjecting those effects to orthogonal rotation, thereby arriving at meaningful axes.