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Aging makes
us more Liberal, not more
Conservative
Newswise — Winston Churchill is often
credited with saying that if "you're not a
liberal when you're 25, you have no heart.
If you're not a conservative by the time
you're 35, you have no brain."
Makes sense; everyone knows older people are
more conservative and set in their ways. So
why then was Churchill more conservative at
age 15 than at age 35?
New research by sociologists Nicholas L.
Danigelis and Stephen J. Cutler of the
University of Vermont and Melissa Hardy, a
sociologist at Pennsylvania State
University, strongly suggests that this
long-held belief about older citizens being
more rigid isn't true.
Their findings, published in the October
2007 edition of the prestigious American
Sociological Review in an article titled
"Population Aging, Intracohort Aging, and
Sociological Attitudes" has sociologists and
politicians alike rethinking the attitudes
and social and political leanings of older
Americans.
The study is based on U.S. General Social
Survey data from 25 surveys between 1972 and
2004 that measure the changes in attitudes
that occur within cohorts at different
stages in life.
The political leanings of 46,510 Americans
were examined with regard to how they felt
about the political and economic roles of
historically subordinate groups (e.g., women
and African-Americans); the civil liberties
of groups considered outside the U.S.
mainstream (e.g., atheists and homosexuals);
and privacy issues (e.g., right-to-die and
sex between consenting adults).
Results showed that although change occurred
in both the 18-39 and 60-and-over age
groups, the movement among the older group
was greater and was most often toward
"increased tolerance rather than increased
conservatism."
"It proves that some of the commonly held
beliefs about older people being rigid and
unwilling to change aren't true," says
Danigelis.
"Clearly both cohorts changed, but the older
one changed more dramatically. In other
words, getting older makes you more
conservative, but only if you're a younger
person.”
The research is especially significant
because it's among the first to show over an
extended period of time that people age 60
and over become more liberal at a faster
rate than their younger counterparts on a
number of measures.
The authors note that Americans who grew up
in the Depression have different attitudes
toward many issues than those who grew up in
the 1960s.
Their research, however, shows that although
people tend to be shaped by defining issues
during their lifetime, a general pattern of
aging Americans changing their attitudes —
regardless of era — is clearly evident. And
much of this change is in a liberal
direction.
A history of
stereotypes
Danigelis and Cutler say that every
stereotype has its own reason for existing.
In regard to the idea of older Americans
being inflexible, Danigelis says it's a
combination of historical factors led by a
shift in opinion about the older patriarchal
way of life that changed during the
free-thinking Revolutionary War era.
Conservative or rigid depictions of older
Americans by writers like Emerson and
Thoreau, and assertions by prominent figures
such as Freud, who once said anyone over age
50 was ineducable, contributed to the shift
in perception.
"Take a long look at U.S. history and you
will see a change in attitudes toward older
people that have produced these sets of
stereotypes," says Danigelis.
Moving ahead to the modern era, Cutler says
a number of institutions that continue to
buy into the notion that you can't teach old
dogs new tricks are losing out on a major
market share. The idea that there's a sort
of 'social sclerosis' or hardening of the
social arteries simply isn't true, he says.
"The idea that older people are uninterested
in computers or can't learn to use them
isn't true," says Cutler.
"The same goes for the current presidential
election. When you dissect the electorate
you will see that older voters will support
Obama. It would be a mistake to ignore them.
"There
are differences in the ways younger and
older Americans function and approach
issues, but nothing about the aging process
is endemic."
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