Reconsidering the Relationship Between Cultural Theory, Political Ideology, and Political Knowledge

Abstract

Objective Social scientists from a variety of disciplines have employed concepts drawn from cultural theory (CT) to explain preferences across an array of issues. Recent research has challenged key elements of CT in a number of ways, perhaps most importantly by arguing that cultural types are simply another formulation of political ideology, and that only politically knowledgeable respondents reliably utilize either cultural or ideological categories in formulating preferences. This study reconsiders and expands upon this contention. Methods Principal component analyses of responses to a U.S. national survey of 4,387 people. Results Our findings are threefold: (1) people with low levels of political knowledge are able to sort egalitarianism and individualism into coherent worldviews; (2) people with high levels of knowledge do not collapse egalitarianism and individualism onto a single scale of political ideology; and (3) regardless of levels of knowledge, survey respondents are able to recognize all four of the value orientations proposed by CT. Conclusion CT, which is related to but different than political ideology, offers a robust system of worldviews that both high‐ and low‐knowledge individuals might draw upon to formulate opinions and make decisions.

Making Sense of Climate Change: How Story Frames Shape Cognition

“…More practically useful criticisms, however, focus on improving specific questions. For example, Ripberger et al (, p. 725) propose mild tweaks to the hierarchy question to improve their performance. Thus, despite the long history of the reliability and validity of CT survey metrics, there may be sufficient need to reassess our measures and improve upon them.…”

“…As a result of the fatalist omission from the earlier studies, we cannot assess congruence and incongruence for this group in our experiments, and they are excluded from our analysis. Additionally, the survey detailed in this research has also been used in other published analyses (see Jones, , ; Ripberger, Song, Nowlin, Jones, & Jenkins‐Smith, ). As a consequence, the descriptions of the experimental instruments and data are unavoidably similar across publications.…”

Advances in Public Opinion and Policy Attitudes Research

“…Gastil, Braman, Kahan, and Slovic (), for example, argue that one's cultural orientation (defined as adherence to values such as individualism and egalitarianism) can have an equally, if not stronger, influence on preferences than traditional liberal and conservative predispositions (p. 711). In a similar vein, Ripberger, Song, Nowlin, Jones, and Jenkins‐Smith's () work demonstrates that even those with low levels of political knowledge demonstrate familiarity with the values associated with cultural theory, and that they rely upon these values to formulate coherent policy preferences. To advance this area of research, scholars should consider how individuals negotiate between their ideological and cultural orientations.…”

Fracking Bad Guys: The Role of Narrative Character Affect in Shaping Hydraulic Fracturing Policy Preferences

“…In order to address the problem of narrative relativity (Jones, ), we leverage Cultural Theory (CT) to populate our narratives with generalizable symbols, wording, and content. CT is an approach originally developed by Mary Douglas () and then further formalized to include grid/group dimensions of sociality, where group denotes the extent to which individuals prefer and associate in groups while grid denotes the extent to which those groups prescribe and constrain preferences and behavior (e.g., Moyer & Song, ; Ripberger, Song, Nowlin, Jones, & Jenkins‐Smith, ; Song, ; Song, Silva, & Jenkins‐Smith, ; Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky, ; Tumlison, Moyer, & Song, ). By intersecting the dimensions of grid and group, CT can be used to conceptually classify individuals as one of four cultural types: egalitarian (low grid/high group), hierarch (high grid/high group), individualist (low grid/low group), and fatalist (high grid/low group).…”