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Continuity and Change in Political Orientations: A Longitudinal Study of Two Generations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

M. Kent Jennings  and
Richard G. Niemi
M. Kent Jennings
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Richard G. Niemi
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

This paper utilizes a national panel study of two biologically linked generations to study political change and continuity between 1965 and 1973. Four basic processes and combinations thereof are posited: absolute continuity, generational effects, life-cycle effects, and period effects. Data at the aggregate level give strong support for each type of change and continuity progression, depending upon the substantive political orientation examined. There are also strong traces of hybrid effects, especially the combination of period and life-cycle processes acting to propel the younger generation at a faster clip than the older. Over the eight-year span the absolute cleavage between the generations tended to decline, the major exception occurring with respect to specific issues and partisanship. The anomaly of this strain toward convergence in the light of the generation gap controversy is discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 1316 - 1335
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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Footnotes

*

The research reported on here was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation. We would also like to thank Greg Markus and Gina Sapiro for their participation and assistance and Philip Converse and Ronald Inglehart for their comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at the meetings of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 1973.

References

1 In addition to the more spectacular evidence of generational cleavage, a good deal of survey data has been offered. Perhaps the best known, partly because of its three-part showing on CBS television, is Yankelovich, Daniel, Inc., Generations Apart: A Study of the Generation Gap Conducted for CBS News (New York: Columbia Broadcasting System, 1969)Google Scholar.

2 For example, Mankoff, Milton and Flacks, Richard, “The Changing Social Base of the American Student Movement,” The Annals, 395 (05, 1971), 54–67 Google Scholar.

3 Flacks, Richard, “Strategies for Radical Social Change,” Social Policy, 1 (March-April, 1971), 7–14 Google Scholar.

4 A very useful discussion of different interpretations of the generation gap, from which the following discussion borrows, is Bengtson, Vern L., “The Generation Gap: A Review and Typology of Social Psychological Perspectives,” Youth and Society, 2 (09, 1970), 7–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Two works stand out for their emphasis on change throughout life—Stanton Wheeler and Brim, Orville, Socialization After Childhood: Two Essays (New York: Wiley, 1966)Google Scholar; and Newcomb, Theodore, Roenig, Kathryn E., Flacks, Richard P., and Warwick, Donald P., Persistence and Change: Bennington College and Its Students after Twenty-Five Years (New York: Wiley, 1967)Google Scholar.

6 The most complete report of the original study is Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., The Political Character of Adolescence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

7 A comprehensive treatment of these topics is found in Riley, Matilda White, Johnson, Marilyn, and Foner, Anne, Aging and Society, Vol. III, A Sociology of Age Stratification (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1972)Google Scholar. See especially Chapter 2, and a shorter version by Matilda Riley, White, “Aging and Cohort Succession: Interpretations and Misinterpretations,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 37 (Spring, 1973), 35–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 The classic formulation of the generational concept remains that of Mannheim, Karl, “The Problem of Generations,” in Mannheim, , Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Oxford, 1952), pp. 276–320 Google Scholar. Hyman, Herbert anticipates some current analytic problems in Political Socialization (New York: The Free Press, 1959)Google Scholar, chapter 6. One of the best empirical applications of the political generation concept is David Butler and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martins, 1971)Google Scholar. For a provocative cross-national application see Inglehart, Ronald, “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies,” American Political Science Review, 65 (12, 1971). 991–1017 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 The difference between 1562 and 1669 stems from the fact that we were unable to interview a parent in 107 instances in 1965.

10 The time lapse happens to embrace what have been called the most crucial age years for creating a distinctive, self-conscious political generation. There is nothing magic in these figures, but Mannheim put the span at 17–25. Another scholar has recently built an elaborate biosocial rationale for 18–26 as the span wherein “political-cultural consciousness” takes firm hold and wherein, if the psycho-historical conditions are appropriate, a new political generation may be born. See Lambert, T. Allen, “Generations and Change: Toward a Theory of Generations as a Force in Historical Process,” Youth and Society, 4 (09, 1972), 21–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At a more general level, Erik H. Erikson's work on identity crisis singles out late adolescence and early adulthood as a potentially important period for political character formation. See his Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968)Google Scholar.

11 Although this explanation seems simple enough, the reality is more complicated. For example, there is the question of whether certain compositional factors, education being a prominent one, have the same equivalency of measurement over time. This is one of the drawbacks to standardization as a statistical way of checking for compositional effects.

12 Recent work indicates that the widely perceived disengagement of older people is in part an artifact of socioeconomic composition. See Glenn, Norval, “Aging, Disengagement, and Opinionation,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 33 (Spring, 1969), 17–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Glenn, Norval and Grimes, Michael, “Aging, Voting, and Political Interest,” American Sociological Review, 33 (08, 1968), 563–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Verba, Sidney and Nie, Norman, Participation in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), chapter 9Google Scholar.

12 Jennings and Niemi, Adolescence, Chapter 10.

14 Data from 1966 are presented in Jennings and Niemi. A period effect may have accelerated the movement in the young cohort, however. Disengagement from Vietnam and the rise of severe domestic issues are secular forces which probably contributed disproportionately to the declining internationalism of the current young.

15 Converse, Philip E., “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” Comparative Political Studies, 2 (07, 1969), 139–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Greenstein, Fred I., Children and Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), chapter 4Google Scholar; and Dennis, Jack, Political Learning in Childhood and Adolescence (Madison: University of Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning, 1969), chapter 2Google Scholar.

17 As E. E. Schattschneider says: “What people think about public affairs depends to a great extent on when they were born. Since life is short and history is endless, what anybody remembers of the past illuminates only a brief segment of the whole story.” See his Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 83 Google Scholar.

18 Similar patterns emerge using respondents rather than responses as the percentage base.

19 One might challenge data of this type on the grounds that people simply report “what is in the news” at the time. To a great extent that is precisely the point, but only when that “news” is continuously repeated and reinforced by other phenomena—as was clearly the case for civil rights.

20 See especially Miller, Arthur H., “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970,” American Political Science Review, 68 (09, 1974), 951–972 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Miller, Arthur H., Brown, Thad A., and Raine, Alden S., “Social Conflict and Political Estrangement, 1958–1972” (paper presented at the 1973 Midwest Political Science Association Convention, Chicago)Google Scholar.

21 The relationship between age and cynicism among adults tends to be curvilinear and somewhat inconsistent over time. Moreover, race and social class complicate the age trends. See Miller, Brown, and Raine; and Jennings and Niemi, Adolescence, chapter 10.

22 Jennings and Niemi, chapter 10.

23 On this point see Foner, Anne, “The Polity,” in Riley, , Johnson, , and Foner, , Aging, pp. 115–159 Google Scholar.

24 It should be stressed that the issues for which we have longitudinal data do not include (almost by definition) issues of more recent vintage. Initial inspection of the marginals on some issues included in the 1973 wave reveals some striking differences between the generations.

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