It is now widely known that people with more education and have been to college tend to be more liberal. This was shown in the classic study by Theodore Newcomb (1943) where he surveyed women and Bennington College in Vermont on their political affiliation. The results showed that the women were more liberal as they advanced in college. I had not realized it really until I started reading about this but college has made me much more liberal as well. I was born in a conservative family and conservatism is definitely in my genes. Attitudes were shown to be genetic by Abraham Tesser (1993) and his identical twins studies. It turns out that identical twins who have been raised apart will have similar attitudes. So, I was a big Bush fan in high school and so were (are) my parents and grandparents. However, since I have been to Southwestern I have taken a few classes on social diversity and have made friends who have different views than what I grew up with. For example, I dated a girl not too long ago who is very liberal. She was constantly watching debates and monitoring the economy. She also was a big Obama fan. I ended watching CSPAN with her often and we discussed politics (which is something I never used to enjoy). I knew from the beginning that I favored Obama, which was weird because if I was in high school I am sure I would be voting for McCain. Anyways, my support for Obama grew greatly just by hanging out with ex and her liberal friends. It was the first time I had really hung out with that kind of crowd on a daily basis but I started to feel very comfortable around them and eventually enjoyed hanging out with them just as much as I enjoyed hanging out with my regular conservative friends. College has given me the opportunity to meet more people and take courses that open my eyes and keep me from being narrow minded. I think this is the reason why I have had a political slide from right to left and is also the reason why I think more educated people become more liberal. So I am a good case study that supports the findings of the Bennington College study (Newcomb, 1943) and I will be voting for Obama, the democratic nominee, despite my background and genetics.
Newcomb, T. M. (1943). Personality and social change: Attitude formation in a student
community. Ft. Worth, TX: Dryden Press.
Tesser, A. (1993). The importance of heritability in psychological research: The case of
attitudes. Psycholigical Review, 100, 129-142.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'm glad to hear that you'll be voting for Obama. Yay! Though I'm from a liberal family, I still feel that the more I learn and the longer I'm in college the more liberal I've become as well.
I thought the Astin (2008) we discussed in class was very interesting follow-up to the Bennington's College study. I was surpised to hear that even in such a large study of students from varying types of colleges that a similar effect was still found.
I say this because my best friend from high school is currently attending Texas A&M a much more conservative school and the complete opposite seems to be coming true with her. The longer she is there is less liberal she becomes.
It would be interesting to see if the same would be true of you. Had you gone to a more conservative school would you still be the more liberal person you are today? Who knows..
Post a Comment