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The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

This article outlines a cognitive-affective model of the role of social groups in political thinking. The model is based on the assumptions that people have stored information and emotional reactions to social groups, and that people are purposive in their thinking about social groups in the sense that they are interested in understanding what various groups have obtained and whether it is deserved. The process through which social groups influence political thinking varies significantly depending upon whether an individual identifies with the group in question. Generally, people are more inclined to feel sympathetic towards the groups to which they belong. These ideas are illustrated with an empirical analysis that focuses on women's issues and makes use of data collected in the 1984 National Election Study Pilot Study.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 Studies on group identification include Conover, Pamela Johnston, ‘The Influence of Group Identifications on Political Perceptions and Evaluations’, American Journal of Political Science, 46 (1984), 760–85Google Scholar; Kinder, Donald R., Rosenstone, Steven J. and Hansen, John Mark, ‘Group Economic Well-Being and Political Choice’, a pilot study report to the 1984 NES Planning Committee and Board of Overseers, 1983Google Scholar; Klein, Ethel, Gender Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: and R, Laurie A.hodebeck, ‘Group Identifications and Policy Preferences: A Reformulation of Group Influence Models’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 1985Google Scholar. Studies on the role of group consciousness include Miller, Arthur, Gurin, Patricia and Gurin, Gerald, ‘Electoral Implications of Group Identification and Consciousness: The Reintroduction of a Concept’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 1978Google Scholar; Miller, Arthur, Gurin, Patricia, Gurin, Gerald and Malanchuk, Oksana, ‘Group Consciousness and Political Participation’, American Journal of Political Science, 25 (1981), 494511CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gurin, Patricia, Miller, Arthur and Gurin, Gerald, ‘Stratum Identification and Consciousness’, Social Psychological Quarterly, 43 (1980), 3047CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gurin, Patricia, ‘Women's Gender Consciousness’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 49 (1985), 143–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shingles, Richard D., ‘Black Consciousness and Political Participation: The Missing Link’, American Political Science Review, 75 (1981), 7691CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Studies of social groups as political symbols include Sears, David O., Hensler, Carl P. and Speer, L. K., ‘Whites' Opposition to “Busing”: Self-interest or Symbolic Politics?’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 369–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sears, David O., Lau, Richard R., Tyler, Tom R. and Allen, Harris M. Jr, ‘Self-Interest versus Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting’, American Political Science Review, 74 (1980), 670–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Studies on group deprivation and intergroup conflict include Crosby, Faye J., Relative Deprivation and Working Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Rhodebeck, Laurie A., ‘Group Deprivation: An Alternative Model for Explaining Collective Political Action’, Micropolitics, 1 (1981), 239–67Google Scholar; Sears, David O. and McConahay, John S., The Politics of Violence: The New Urban Blacks and the Watts Riot (Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin, 1973)Google Scholar; and Vanneman, R. D. and Pettigrew, Thomas F., ‘Race and Relative Deprivation in the Urban United States’, Race, 13 (1972), 461–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Exceptions to this include Miller, et al. , ‘Electoral Implications of Group Identification’Google Scholar, and Lau, Richard R., ‘Reference Group Influence on Political Attitudes and Behavior: A Preliminary Report on the Importance of Social, Political and Psychological Contexts’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1983.Google Scholar

3 Where ‘groups’ are voluntary (e.g., political organizations) or defined in terms of face-to-face interaction, this definition of group membership may be inappropriate. The definition is most appropriate when the meaning of the term ‘group’ is essentially that of a category; and therefore, it applies most readily to social groupings based on age, race and sex, etc. (see Richard R. Lau, ‘Individual and Contextual Influences on Group Identification’, unpublished manuscript, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University). Finally, even when the term ‘group’ refers to social categories, group membership may be defined subjectively, rather than objectively as done here (see, for example, Turner, John C., ‘Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group’, in Tajfel, Henri, ed., Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

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5 For example, Rhodebeck, , ‘Group Identification and Policy Preferences’Google Scholar; and Lau, , ‘Reference Group Influence on Political Attitudes’.Google Scholar

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43 An exception to this general pattern may occur for outgroups where people's affect is very strong and their schemata are very well-developed. In the United States, racial groups are a key example of this. We might therefore expect to find that racial groups have a greater role than other groups in the political thinking of whites. See Carmines, Edward G. and Stimson, James A., ‘Racial Issues and the Structure of Mass Belief Systems’, Journal of Politics, 44 (1982), 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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46 For the purposes of this paper, ‘women's issues’ are defined as those issues ‘where policy consequences are likely to have a more immediate and direct impact on significantly larger numbers of women than men’ (see Carroll, Susan J., Women as Candidates in American Politics (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 15)Google Scholar. Of course, from the perspective of the individual, what constitutes a ‘woman's issue’ will vary from person to person depending on their perception of group cues and their existing schemata.

47 Male groups associated with sports teams, men's clubs and the military may promote bonding and a sense of solidarity among their members; but they do not necessarily create a heightened sense of group identity (i.e., ‘I am a man’) or, more important, group consciousness. Similarly, in the 1970s one backlash of the women's movement was the creation of a ‘men's’ movement. However, this movement never really ‘took-off’, either in the popular culture or as a topic of academic research. For a discussion on the men's movement see, David, Deborah S. and Brannon, Robert, The Forty-nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1976).Google Scholar

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50 When variables are rescaled to a zero-to-one format they are not being dichotomized. The lowest value is set to 0, the highest value to 1 and all intermediate categories to corresponding fractional values.

51 Klein, , Gender Politics, p. 107.Google Scholar