(24)

SOCIAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POLITICAL PARTIES

have more to conserve. By the same token, younger people are more liberal, more receptive to change. If one accepts the com­mon stereotypes—that the Republican party is more "conserva­tive" and the Democrats more "liberal"—then the legend seems to hold for Erie County in 1940.

In May, 50% of those below 45 years of age, but 55% of those over 45 intended to vote Republican. However, this re­sult does not hold for the Protestants and Catholics separately. Only among the Protestants were the older people more Democratic. This refine­ment of the relationship between age and political preference (25) probably has two explanations. First, the younger people, who are generally less church-influenced than their elders, show less influence of religion upon vote. Thus young Protestants are less Republican than old Protestants and young Catholics less Democratic than old Catholics. And secondly, the myth that age brings political conservatism—here shown to be incorrect— may apply in another sense. Like appetite, custom grows by what it feeds on. The religious factors which influence vote preference are intensified through the years so that they carry more weight for the elderly. They have a longer time to exer­cise their influence, to indoctrinate the respondent, to affect him through the common elements. In other words, advancing age may not bring political conservatism but it does bring social conservatism.

An Index of Political Predisposition

To this point, we have isolated two major influences upon vote: the SES level and religious affiliation. And, incidentally, we have seen that the political effect of age differs for Catholics and Protestants. A number of other factors were investigated, but only one proved statistically significant: there were 14% more Republican voters in the rural part of the county than in Sandusky, the one large industrialized town with a popula­tion of 25,000.

Other differences were less important. Women were some­what more inclined to favor the Republican party. The same was true for better-educated people, but education is so highly related to SES level that it is hard to say whether the influence of education alone would be distinguishable if a more refined economic classification were used.

The multiple correlation between vote and the social factors discussed above is approximately .5." But the greatest part of the predictive value of all these factors derives from three fac-(26) tors: SES level, religion, and residence. Of all rich Protestant farmers almost 75% voted Republican, whereas 90% of the Catholic laborers living in Sandusky voted Democratic.

In order to use these factors in a simple way, we constructed an index of political predisposition (IPP)¹² so that the respon­dents could be classified on a scale ranging from those with strong Republican predispositions at one extreme to those with strong Democratic predispositions at the other. While an index is, of course, cruder than a coefficient of multiple correlation, it does serve to distinguish easily among the votes of people with different combinations of personal characteristics. The proportion of Republicans falls off consistently and signifi-(27) cantly from one extreme of political predispositions to the other. And thus a simple combination of three primary personal char­acteristics goes a long way in "explaining" political preferences. There is a familiar adage in American folklore to the effect that a person is only what he thinks he is, an adage which re­flects the typically American notion of unlimited opportunity, the tendency toward self-betterment, etc. Now we find that the reverse of the adage is true: a person thinks, politically, as he is, socially. Social characteristics determine political preference.