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The Development of Political Ideology: A Framework for the Analysis of Political Socialization*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Richard M. Merelman*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin

Extract

“Myself, I get confused. The President tells ya that he don't want no war, it's peace. You pick up a paper, they're bombing children. And television, the guys being interviewed, talking about peace, and the picture shows where the women and children are being bombed and slaughtered and murdered. How long if I think that way and I have had a bad feeling, how long will other people that their mentality's not strong enough, to separate the cause of it? Fear. What's gonna happen to our kids, our grandchildren?

“Lotta them are afraid of their jobs, losing their jobs. Because the government's maybe got some contract with some company. For example, we got one fellow here works with the government, with this here carbonic gas or whatever it is. If he opens his mouth up too much, he can lose his job. And the senators or congressmen, they personally don't take interest in their own country, right here, what's going on.

“The colored. We had a tavern on 61st and State, three and a half years, Negro neighborhood. I tell you I never was insulted no place by not a Negro person over there. They respected me highly. It took a white fella to come in and insult me because I wouldn't serve him beer, he was too drunk. And if it wasn't for these poor Negro fellas, I'd a probably killed this man. (Laughs) Because he called me a dirty name.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1969

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Fred Greenstein for his comments on an earlier version of this piece. He is absolved of any responsibility for what follows.

References

1 Terkel, Studs, Division Street: America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), p. 65 Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., pp. 61–62.

3 In Ideology and Discontent, ed., Apter, David E. (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), pp. 206262 Google Scholar. For an interesting attempt to rebut Converse, see Luttberg, Norman R., “The Structure of Beliefs among Leaders and the Public,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 32 (Fall, 1968), 398410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Converse, loc. cit., pp. 207–213.

5 Ibid., p. 207.

6 Lane, Robert E., Political Ideology (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 15 Google Scholar. The uses of the term “ideology” are legion. Therefore, we have defined the term in our own way. For further elucidation, see Ibid., pp. 13–17.

7 Converse, op. cit., p. 218.

8 For a thoroughly tangled statement of the interrelationships of participation and cognition, see Milbrath, Lester W., Political Participation (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1965), pp. 6266ffGoogle Scholar.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., p. 21.

11 Converse, op. cit., p. 213. See also Campbell, Angus et al., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), p. 476 Google Scholar.

12 See, for example, the pieces by Lipset, Seymour and Hofstader, Richard in The Radical Right, ed., Bell, Daniel (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1964)Google Scholar; and Gusfield, Joseph R., Symbolic Crusade (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963)Google Scholar. For an early statement of the theory underlying these formulations, see Lenski, Gerhard, “Status Crystallization: A Non-Vertical Dimension of Social Status,” American Sociological Review, 19 (08, 1954), 405413 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Lerner, Daniel, The Nazi Elite (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951), p. 85 Google Scholar.

14 For a review and empirical test of the two theories, see Merelman, Richard M., “Intimate Environments and Political Behavior,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (08, 1968), 382400 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A case study of the same phenomenon is Frazier, E. Franklin, Black Bourgeoisie (New York: Collier Books, 1962)Google Scholar.

15 The fullest statement of this position may be found in Bell, Daniel, The End of Ideology (New York: Collier Books, 1961), pp. 393407 Google Scholar.

16 For one of the best national character treatments of Americans, see Lerner, Max, America as a Civilization (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957)Google Scholar.

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20 op. cit.

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22 Laurendeau and Pinard, op. cit., 107.

23 Ibid., 161.

24 Ibid., 188–192.

25 Ibid., 192–196.

26 Dennis, Wayne, “Animistic Thinking Among College and University Students,” Scientific Monthly, 76 (04, 1953), 247249 Google Scholar. Other sources cited therein and in Laurendeau and Pinard are particularly useful on this topic.

27 Laurendeau and Pinard, op. cit., chap. 9.

28 Adelson and O'Neil, loc. cit., 8–9.

29 Piaget, op. cit., pp. 45–16.

30 Piaget, Jean, The Moral Judgment of the Child (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1965), p. 45 Google Scholar.

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33 It is this tendency on the part of the child which Piaget has labeled “moral realism.” Ibid., pp. 109–197.

34 Ibid., p. 251.

35 Ibid., pp. 251–263.

36 Ibid., pp. 121–163.

37 Ibid., pp. 101–197. For a recent attempt to test this hypothesis in the area of childhood attitudes about political authorities, see Jaros, Dean, “Children's Orientations Toward the President: Some Additional Theoretical Considerations and Data,” Journal of Politics, 29 (05, 1967), 368388 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Piaget, op. cit., p. 83.

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40 Piaget, , The Language and Thought…, p. 91 Google Scholar.

41 Kohlberg, op. cit., pp. 13–14.

42 Parenthetically, it is striking the extent to which the development of the child, as outlined in this theory, resembles historical developments over whole eras. For example, we have talked much about the child's shift from an external, but wholly dictatorial form of morality to an internalized conscience. This shift seems to parallel what many scholars believe to be the difference between late Old Testament Judaism and early Christianity. Many scholars have commented upon the emphasis on legalism and expiation in Old Testament Judaism, and the disintegration of codification thereafter. We have no wish to argue seriously that ontogeny does recapitulate phylogeny. We only wish to indicate the parallelism. The young child's belief in ritualism, supernaturalism, the deus ex machina, etc., remind one, however, of the thought processes of “primitive” people. To develop this argument so as to make it more palatable to the reader would require knowledge and space not available to the author. The general idea seems worth pursuing, however.

43 Piaget's immense corpus of work is only now having a major impact in the United States. For an enjoyable introduction to his thought, see Elkind, David, “Giant in the Nursery–Jean Piaget,” New York Times Magazine, 05 26, 1968 Google Scholar.

44 See Bronfenbrenner, Urie, “The Role of Age, Sex, Class, and Culture in Studies of Moral Development,” Religious Education (Research Supplement), 62 (07-August, 1962), S-3, S-5, S18 Google Scholar.

45 Bronfenbrenner, loc. cit. For the first empirical study to touch this deficiency, see Harrower, M. R., “Social Status and Moral Development,” British Journal of Educational Psychology, 5 (1935), 7595 Google Scholar.

46 For an overview of Sullivan's work, see Mullahy, Patrick (ed.), The Contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan (New York: Hermitage House, 1952), chaps. 1–2Google Scholar.

47 For example, Piaget sets only a percentage boundary on thought categories; he also admits that a particular child may evidence thought characteristic of a variety of levels at once. Piaget, The Moral Judgment…, passim.

48 Ibid., chap. 3.

49 See the review and codification of the relevant literature in Winch, Robert F., Identification and Its Familial Determinants (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962)Google Scholar.

50 This formulation should not be taken to imply that identification has an unambiguous meaning. Lazowick, for example, has specified at least three major definitions which seem currently in use: 1) acting as if the subject were the same person as his model; 2) imitating the model; 3) introjecting the model's norms and values. Lionel Lazowick, M., “On the Nature of Identification,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (09, 1955), 175184, 175-176CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Bronfenbrenner specifies yet a fourth meaning, i.e., acting in terms of an ideal image of the model rather than on the basis of his actual behavior. Bronfenbrenner, Urie, “The Study of Identification through Interpersonal Perception,” in Person Perception and Interpersonal Behavior, eds., Tagiuri, Renato and Petrullo, Luigi (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 110131, 123Google Scholar. Despite their importance for psychology, these definitional ambiguities do not affect the basic argument of this paper.

51 Keniston, Kenneth, The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), chap. 6Google Scholar.

52 Keniston, Kenneth, Young Radicals (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), chap. 2Google Scholar.

53 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Altbach, Philip G., “Student Politics and Higher Education in the United States,” in Student Politics, ed., Lipset, Seymour Martin (New York: Basic Books, 1967), pp. 199252, 216Google Scholar.

54 Clausen, John A., “Family Structure, Socialization, and Personality,” in Review of Child Development Research, v. 2, eds., Lois, W. and Hoffman, Martin L. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1966), pp. 155, 42Google Scholar.

55 For concise statements of opposing positions, see Winch, op. cit., p. 35, and McCord, Joan, McCord, William, and Thurber, Emily, “Some Effects of Paternal Absence on Male Children,” in Studies in Adolescence, ed., Grinder, Robert E. (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 118133 Google Scholar. For studies indicating the possible importance of father absence to both identification and political ideology, see Keniston, , The Uncommitted …, esp. 113118 Google Scholar; and Jaros, Dean, Hirsch, Herbert, and Fleron, Frederic J. Jr., “The Malevolent Leader: Political Socialization in an American Sub-Culture,” this Review, 62 (06, 1968), 564578, 573Google Scholar.

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57 For a review of these theories, see Hoffman, Martin L., “The Role of the Parent in the Child's Moral Growth,” Religious Education (Research Supplement), 57 (07-August, 1962), S-18 through S-33, S22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Sears, Robert R., “Identification as a Form of Behavioral Development,” The Concept of Development, ed., Harris, Dale B. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957), pp. 149162, 160Google Scholar.

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60 Ibid., S-25.

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65 Bettleheim, Bruno, “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38 (1943), 417452 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Some may question this introduction of data drawn from studies conducted on lower animals. I have used this material not because I think it definitive (I would not even argue the point), but precisely because it is illustrative. Were I to attempt a definitive argument on this point, I would naturally rely wholly on studies of humans. It is, however, possible that the same reactions which exhibit themselves in purity with lower animals also occur in humans, but are masked or distorted. We ought not to assume that the responses of lower animals and humans are incomparable. They may be different in expression, but not in substance.

67 Kleemier, Robert, “Fixation and Regression in the Rat,” Psychological Monographs, v. 54, #4, Whole No. 246 (1942), 13 Google Scholar.

68 Maier, Norman R. F., Frustration: The Study of Behavior Without a Goal (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1961), p. 28 Google Scholar.

69 Lawson, Reed and Marx, Melvin H., “Frustration: Theory and Experiment,” Genetic Psychology Monographs, 57 (03, 1958), 393464, 437Google ScholarPubMed.

70 I do not contend that psychological modes of punishment may not be frustrating. But physical intervention to block desired behavior probably is more frustrating than psychological intervention.

71 Mullahy, op. cit., p. 34.

72 Odier, Charles, Anxiety and Magic Thinking, trans., Schoelly, Marie-Louise and Sherfey, Mary Jane (New York: International Universities Press, 1956), pp. 5253 Google Scholar. Odier's work is one of the few attempts to bring together Piaget's and Freud's perspectives on human development.

73 Barker, R. F., Dembo, T., and Lewin, K., “Frustration and Regression: An Experiment with Young Children,” University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 18 (1941)Google Scholar. For a reanalysis of this experiment, see Davis, John M., “A Reinterpretation of the Barker, Dembo, and Lewin Study of Frustration and Regression,” Child Development. 29 (12, 1958), 503506 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

74 Barthol, Richard P. and Ku, Nani D., “Regression Under Stress to First Learned Behavior,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59 (07, 1959), 134136 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

75 Adelson and O'Neil, op. cit., p. 10.

76 Odier, op. cit., pp. 48–49.

77 The most spectacular tendency involved is, of course, scapegoating.

78 Ames, Louise Bates, “The Development of the Sense of Time in the Young Child,” Journal of Genetic Psychology, 68, First Half (03, 1946), 97125, 110Google ScholarPubMed.

79 lbid.

80 Mischel, Walter, “Preference for Delayed Reinforcement and Social Responsibility,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62 (01, 1961), 18 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

81 Grim, Paul F., Kohlberg, Lawrence, and White, Sheldon H., “Some Relationships between Conscience and Attentional Processes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8 (1968), 239252, 239CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

82 Ames, op.cit., 115.

83 Brown, Roger, “How Shall a Thing be Called?” in The Cognitive Process: Readings, ed., Harper, Robert J. C. et al. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 647655, 651Google Scholar.

84 Ibid.

85 Hartshorne, H. and May, M. A., Studies in the Nature of Character, vol. I (New York: Macmillan, 1928)Google Scholar. Hartshorne, H., May, M. A., and Mailer, J. B., Studies in the Nature of Character, v. II (New York: Macmillan, 1929)Google Scholar. Hartshorne, H., May, M. A., and Shuttleworth, F. K., Studies in the Nature of Character, v. III (New York: Macmillan, 1930)Google Scholar.

86 MacRae, Duncan Jr., “A Test of Piaget's Theories of Moral Development,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49 (01, 1954), 1418 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Grinder's assertion that by age 11 the various measures of conscience intercorrelate closely seems to represent a minority position. The evidence simply does not support his argument. Grinder, op. cit., 818.

87 As cited in Hoffman, op. cit., S-29.

88 Durkin, Dolores, “The Specificity of Children's Moral Judgments,” Journal of Genetic Psychology, 98 (01, 1961), 313 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

89 Converse, op. cit., 238–245.

90 For a recent article which evidences realization of this problem, see Dennis, Jack, “Major Problems of Political Socialization Research,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (02, 1968), 85115 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 For a discussion, see Greenstein, Fred I., Children and Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), chap. 3Google Scholar, and the sources cited therein. Also, Hess, Robert D. and Torney, Judith V., The Development of Political Attitudes in Children (Chicago: Alldine, 1967), chaps. 2-3Google Scholar; Jaros, Hirsch, and Fleron, op. cit.; and Jaros, op. cit.

92 These aspects of childish thought seem similar to “dreamwork” in the psychoanalytic theory of dreams.

93 The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1964), chap. 1Google Scholar.

94 The names of Woodrow Wilson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X come most readily to mind.

95 See Hyman, Herbert, Political Socialization (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 6985 Google Scholar; Greenstein, op. cit., chap. 4; Hess and Torney, op. cit., chap. 9; Campbell et al., op. cit., chap. 6; and Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child,” this Review, 52 (03, 1968), 169185, 172–174Google Scholar.

96 Compare ibid. with Hyman, op. cit., p. 74.

97 Stephenson, op. cit., p. 112. For evidence indicating the superiority of first-born children over middle children in two other spheres–occupational and educational achievement, see Blau, Peter M. and Duncan, Otis Dudley, The American Occupational Structure (New York: Wiley, 1968), pp. 307308 Google Scholar.

98 Lane, op. cit. For an excellent empirical description of one kind of ideological structure, with moral standards at the forefront of the discussion, see Berkowitz, Leonard and Lutterman, Kenneth G., “The Traditionally Socially Responsible Personality,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 32 (Summer, 1968), 169186 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965)Google Scholar.

100 For evidence on these characteristics of mass publics, see Stouffer, Samuel, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1963)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” Political Opinion and Electoral Behavior, ed., Dryer, Edward C. and Rosenbaum, Walter A. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1966), 236267 Google Scholar; Prothro, James W. and Grigg, C. W., “Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement,” Journal of Politics, 22 (Spring, 1960), 276294 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Mac-Phee, William H., Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), chap. 14Google Scholar. For a recent critique, see Bachrach, Peter, The Theory of Democratic Elitism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967)Google Scholar.

101 A study which addresses this problem is Eckstein, Harry, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton: Center of International Studies, 1961)Google Scholar.

102 Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1960), chap. 2Google Scholar.

103 Lasswell, Harold D., “Democratic Character,” in The Political Writings of Harold Lasswell (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 465525 Google Scholar. For a recent discussion of these same problems, see Greenstein, Fred I., “Personality and Political Socialization: The Theories of Authoritarian and Democratic Character,” The Annals, 361 (09, 1965), 8195 Google Scholar.

104 Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), chap. 9Google Scholar.

105 Converse, op. cit.

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