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Whites' Opposition to “Busing”: Self-interest or Symbolic Politics?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

David O. Sears ,
Carl P. Hensler  and
Leslie K. Speer
David O. Sears
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Carl P. Hensler
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Leslie K. Speer
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

This article contrasts the “self-interest” and “symbolic politics” explanations for the formation of mass policy preferences and voting behavior. Self-interested attitudes are defined as those supporting policies that would maximize benefits and minimize costs to the individual's private material well-being. The “symbolic politics” model emphasizes pressures to make adulthood attitudes consistent with the residues of preadult socialization. We compare the two models in terms of their ability to account for whites' opposition to busing school children for racial integration of the public schools, and the role of the busing issue in presidential voting decisions, using the 1972 Center for Political Studies election study. Regression analysis shows strong effects of symbolic attitudes (racial intolerance and political conservatism) on opposition to busing, and of the busing issue on presidential voting decisions. Self-interest (e.g., having children susceptible to busing) had no significant effect upon either. It is concluded that self-interest is often overestimated as a determinant of public opinion and voting behavior because it is too rarely directly assessed empirically.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 1979 , pp. 369 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1979

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1977 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. The research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant to the first author, and by intramural funds administered by the UCLA Central Computing Network. We are indebted to numerous colleagues for their helpful comments, especially Jack Citrin, M. Stephen Weatherford, Harold B. Gerard, Donald R. Kinder, John B. McConahay, Thad Brown, John Petrocik, Arthur Miller, Warren Miller, Tom R. Tyler, Richard Lau, H. M. Allen, Robert Abelson, Sam Kernell, Christine Rossell, and Barbara Gutek, none of whom should be blamed for the persistence of any interpretations with which they still disagree.

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