The Democratic Political Personality: Functions of Attitudes and Styles of Reasoning

Why We Believe in Democracy: Testing Theories of Attitude Functions and Democracy1

“…An attitude object that appears to meet these four criteria is democracy. With regard to academic importance, political theorists and political psychologists have sought to understand why people believe in democracy (Binford, 1983;Lane, 1962;Rosenberg, Ward, & Chilton, 1988;Schwartz, 1986). These theorists contend that people believe in democracy for different reasons, and some reasons may foster more resilient THE FUNCTIONS OF PRO-DEMOCRATIC ATTITUDES 427 democratic beliefs and behaviors than others.…”

“…As for the third criterion, Schwartz (1986) believes that people have traditionally believed in democracy for altruistic (social utility) and ethical (value expressive) reasons, but an increasing number of us believe in democracy out of self-interest (personal utility). Binford's (1983) three types of democratic citizen bear a rough resemblance to attitude functions: for the socially adaptive democrat, a belief in democracy might serve a social adjustment, social identity, or ego bolstering function; for the cognitive democrat, it might serve a social utility or social identity function; and for the character-rooted democrat, it serves a value expressive function. Finally, political psychologists have stressed the role of the ego (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950) and selfesteem (Lane, 1962;Sniderman, 1976) in the formation of authoritarian and democratic beliefs, suggesting the potential for democratic beliefs to serve a ego bolstering function and possibly even an ego defensive function.…”

“…Democracy's advocates have told us to embrace democracy out of self-interest (Schumpeter, 19761, altruism (Schwartz, 1986), moral virtue (Dahl, 19891, social identity (Rousseau, 1762/1950, and a desire for self-enhancement (Pateman, 1970). With regard to the social adjustment function, Binford's (1983) work suggests its relevance, but no democratic theorist, to this author's knowledge, has framed a rationale for democracy in these terms. On balance, however, it should be relatively easy to produce naturalistic pro-democratic arguments.…”

“…Democratic theorists have argued that democracy finds its strongest foundation in altruism (Laswell, 1951; McCloskey & Zaller, 1984; Schwartz, 1986), broader moral and political beliefs (Binford, 1983;Rosenberg et al, 19881, and positive self-esteem (Lane, 1962;Pateman, 1970;Sniderman, 1976). These theorists have not connected their work with functional theories, but their "foundations of democracy" correspond with the social utility, value expressive, and ego bolstering functions, respectively.…”

In the shadow of the base:Teaching war to the children of soldiers

“…1Barton (2015) points out that while elicitation techniques have existed in research for some time, there is no consistent definition of them and little attention paid to them in the research literature with little “shared theoretical assumptions” (p. 180). He points out that other terms including “semi-projective devices” (Binford, 1984), “visual methods” (Harper, 1994), and “structured interviewing methods” (Bernard, 2006) are also used to describe them.…”