Growing Conservatism in the United States?

Abstract

In order to determine the extent to which the widespread perception of growing American conservativism is accurate, 36 NORC opinion items were examined in each survey year they appear from 1972 to 1980. Twenty-nine of these items factored on three dimensions: The Civil Liberties, Abortion, and Economic scales. A conservative trend was found only in the case of the Economic scale, and it peaked in 1977, subsequently remaining unchanged. Multiple regression analyses controlling for sex, religion, age, education, occupational prestige, and three residence measures were used to determine whether patterns of attitude change or stasis over time were general in the population or specific to certain categories of people. While ambiguous, findings generally fail to identify population segments uniquely characterized by growing conservatism, with the likely exception of Jews and possibly youth. However, conservative trends were noted in items that concerned problems that were most serious in the later years of the 1970s: Inflation, crime, and international “weakness.”