European Sociological Review, Vol. 5 No.

1, May 1989 81
© Oxford University Press 1989

Searching for ideal types: the potentialities of

latent class analysis
JACQUES A. HAGENAARS AND LOEK C. HALMAN

ABSTRACT Typologies play an important role in sociological theory and research. Basic to the use of (ideal)
types is the notion that a subject's overt behavior can be conceived of as governed by his/her belonging or
closeness to a particular underlying pure type. Many statistical techniques are in use to detect or construct these
fundamental types, especially factor analysis. Much less attention has been paid to the possibilities that latent
class analysis has to offer. Through an elaborate example, it is shown that the basic ideas of latent class analysis
correspond eminently well with the use social scientists make of (ideal) types. Several important extensions of
the basic latent class model along with significant new developments are discussed.

INTRODUCTION the property space and consists of only a few

Typologies, whether or not in the form of ideal
types, play an important role in sociological
theory and research. An outstanding example is
Max Weber's 'ideal' ethos of Protestantism and
the Spirit of Capitalism, or his Reiner Typen
legitimer Herrschaft. Besides Max Weber, many
other social scientists from the past and the
present have created typologies which have had
a great influence on the directions sociological
theory and research have taken. To mention just
a few: Tbnnies' dichotomy Gemeinschaft-
Gesellschaft; Riesman's typification of societies
in terms of tradition-, inner-, and other-direc-
tedness; Redfield's folk and urban society;
Almond and Verba's typology of political cul-
tures; Bell's characterization of societies as pre-
industrial, industrial and post-industrial; and,
finally, Inglehart's division of people in materi-
alists and post-materialists. (For a survey and a
still longer list, see McKinney, 1966, chapter 5;
see also, Bell, 1974; Inglehart, 1977.)
The categories of a typology, the types, can be
conceived of as the cells of a multi-dimensional
table whose dimensions are formed by the rel-
evant attributes which make up the typology.
Or, in other words: types are just locations in a
so-called property space (Barton, 1955, p. 50;
Sjoberg and Nett, 1968, p. 254; Riley, 1963, p.
343). Usually, a typology occupies only part of
cells of the multidimensional table. Very often
these are the extreme cells or locations. But
extremity as such is not important. What does
matter is that the particular combination of
characteristics a certain cell or location repre-
sents, makes sense and can be interpreted mean-
ingfully.
By focusing solely upon certain 'pure' types
and thus exaggerating certain specific features of
the population under study, one tries to get a
better and deeper understanding of the
complexities of social reality: the 'overt'
behavior of people is explained by, and is made
intelligible from, their closeness to these pure,
fundamental types. In this sense, people are
assigned to particular types.
There are several statistical techniques that
can be very helpful for discovering a suitable
typology and for classifying cases in terms of this
typology. Well-known and widely used tech-
niques are factor analysis, discriminant analysis
and cluster analysis.
Much less attention has been paid to latent
class analysis. Although the basic ideas underly-
ing latent class analysis were developed as early
as 1950 (Lazarsfeld, 1950a,b), it is only rather
recently that serious (statistical) shortcomings of
the older procedures for carrying out latent class
analyses have been overcome (Clogg, 1981;
82 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
Goodman, 1974a,b; Haberman, 1979;
McCutcheon, 1987). This has been a very favor-
able development, for, as we will show in this
article, the basic ideas of latent class analysis
correspond eminently well with the way social
scientists use and define typologies.
In the next section we will outline the basics of
the latent class analysis model and compare it
with the other classification techniques
mentioned above.
Then we will show through an elaborate
example the usefulness of the latent class
approach to typology construction.
Extensions of the basic latent class model are
the subject of the fourth section. It will be shown
how 'other' variables—for example, background
characteristics—can be incorporated into latent
class analysis to enhance one's insight into the
meaning of the types discovered. Furthermore,
it will be discussed how latent class analysis can
be used to investigate the relationships among
typologies from several domains (political, re-
ligious etc.).
In the last two sections we will very briefly
mention a few important new developments in
the area of latent class analysis, and conclude
with an evaluation of the potentialities and
shortcomings of this technique as a tool to
search for ideal types.
METHODS FOR DISCOVERING TYPES; THE
STANDARD LATENT CLASS MODEL
As has been said above, the main statistical tools
for constructing typologies seem to be factor
analysis (Kim and Mueller, 1978a,b; Harman,
1976), discriminant analysis (Klecka, 1980;
Tatsuoka, 1971) and cluster analysis (Bijnen,
1973; Aldenderfer and Blashfield, 1984; Everitt,
1980). Of course, many other classification tech-
niques exist; for example, multidimensional
scaling (Kruskal and Wish, 1978) or homogen-
eity analysis (De Leeuw, 1984; Gifi, 1981).
However, the three mentioned earlier have been
used most often. So, the potentialities of latent
class analysis will only be compared with these
three.
With factor analysis one tries to account for
the relations among a set of observed, manifest
variables in terms of the effects of a few underly-
ing latent variables (factors). It is assumed that
individuals have 'scores' on these underlying
latent variables and that these latent positions
basically determine their scores on the observed
variables. In principle, the observed variables do
not influence each other directly, but their inter-
correlations derive completely from the corre-
lation each of the manifest variables has with the
latent variables.
In a certain sense this model corresponds well
with the basic ideas of typology construction.
The factors form the dimensions underlying the
typology and the scores on these factors are the
'pure' types which determine (explain) the
'overt' behavior of the respondents, that is, their
scores on the observed, manifest variables.
But several discrepancies can also be noted.
The typologies mentioned in the previous sec-
tion all consist of just a few discrete types.
However, factors are considered as continuous
variables with an 'infinite' number of categories,
in other words an 'infinite' number of types. Of
course, continuous variables can always be
categorized in order to arrive at a limited
number of types. But this is evidently an arbi-
trary procedure as there are no absolute rules on
where and how to categorize the underlying
continuum.
One might leave the continuous character of
the factors intact and defend the position that
factor analysis permits a better, less crude
classification of respondents in terms of the
underlying typology than the few coarse
categories which the 'old' typologies provided.
There may be cases where this is true and where,
accordingly, factor analysis would be an appro-
priate technique for typology construction, for
example, Inglehart's distinction between materi-
alists and post-materialists.
But one has to realize that in factor analysis it
is assumed that both the underlying factors and
the manifest variables have been 'measured' at
interval level and that ah1 relations, both among
the factors themselves as well as between the
factors and the observed variables, are supposed
to be linear. Now, many typologies cannot be
considered as interval scales, but consist of
qualitative categories on a nominal scale.
Furthermore, the relations among the dimen-
sions that make up a particular typology and the
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 83
relations between the typology and the 'overt' such a way that the objects belonging to the
behavior very often cannot be adequately same cluster are as similar as possible (have high
described in terms of simple linear relationships. similarity indices with each other) and objects
So, there exists at least a discrepancy between belonging to different clusters are as different
the language that much sociological work on from each other as possible (have low similarity
typology construction uses and the language of indices with each other).
the factor analytic approach. Moreover, in many In general, cluster analysis does not make
cases this discrepancy points to a fundamental very restrictive assumptions and can be used for
incompatibility. all kinds of data. However, in carrying out
'Discriminant analysis is a statistical technique cluster analysis, one meets a number of practical
which allows the researcher to study the problems. Very often the results of a particular
differences between two or more groups of cluster technique are rather vague in the sense
objects with respect to several variables simul- that it is not at all clear how many clusters
taneously' (Klecka, 1980, p. 7). (types) one ought to choose. Moreover, there
So, in discriminant analysis the cases are are many different cluster techniques (and simi-
assigned to just a few discrete categories (groups larity indices) and it often occurs that different
or types) that are of a nominal level of measure- techniques yield different outcomes without
ment. This corresponds well with the way there being sound reasons for choosing one
typologies are mostly denned. In this respect solution (one technique) instead of the other.
discriminant analysis may be preferred to factor Also the size of the similarity matrix may pose a
analysis. problem, even for modern computers and pro-
On the other hand, in factor analysis the types grams.
are defined on the latent level, taking measure- On a more theoretical level, there is the
ment unreliability, 'random' and unique 'overt' problem that the objects are compared with each
behavior into account, while in discriminant other in terms of the same similarity index based
analysis the types are the categories of an on the same variables. However, in case of, say,
observed variable and are defined on the mani- three types A, B, and C it may occur that A and
fest level. In many cases the notion of 'pure' or B have the same scores on particular variables
'ideal' types may be better represented by the that set them both apart from C, while at the
notion of underlying, latent positions. same time A and C have scores on certain other
In discriminant analysis the groups are simul- variables in common that make them both differ
taneously compared on a number of (observed) from B. While in many typology constructions
variables. It is assumed that these variables, on this kind of situation occurs, one cannot ad-
which the groups are compared, have been equately deal with it through cluster analysis
measured at interval level. Furthermore, the techniques.
relations between the (dummy) variable Of course, latent class analysis does not solve
'belonging to a particular group or not' and the all the problems inherent in the three classifi-
comparison variables are supposed to be linear. cation techniques mentioned above. But in
In this respect, both discriminant analysis and many cases it is to be preferred to these three:
factor analysis share the (too) restrictive the types are defined on the latent level; all
assumptions of interval level measurement and variables concerned are considered as nominal
linear relationships—too restrictive, that is, scales; no restrictions are imposed on the form
from the viewpoint of typology construction. of the relations between the variables.
The starting point for cluster analysis is a N x The standard latent class model can be repre-
N similarity matrix whose cells contain indices sented as in Figure 1 (for the case of one latent
that for all N objects show the similarity of each and four manifest variables).
and every object with each and every other X in Figure 1 is an underlying, not directly
object on a number of observed variables. The observed variable; it is also a discrete,
purpose of cluster analysis is to find mutually categorical variable with no order relations
exclusive groups (clusters, types) of objects in imposed upon its categories. In other words, X
84 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
FIGURE 1 The basic latent class model
is a nominal level latent variable. The categories
of X are called latent classes. These latent
classes represent the 'pure' types. For example,
in terms of Zijderveld's fundamental ethos
typology of the pre-modern, modern, and post-
modern societies, X is a trichotomous latent
variable with three latent classes: Amoralists,
Moralists, and Immoralists (Adriaansens and
Zijderveld, 1981; Zijderveld, 1982).
As shown in Figure 1, this latent variable X
influences the variables A, B, C, and D; the
variables A through D are manifest, observed
variables measured on a nominal scale. In prin-
ciple, the number of categories may vary
between all variables. As in factor analysis, the
manifest variables are associated with each other
but only because of X. There are no direct
relations among these manifest variables; A
does not directly influence B etc. So, systematic
patterns of scores on A through D are explained
by the relation each manifest variable has with
the underlying latent variable.
No assumptions are made concerning the
form (linear or otherwise) of the relationships
between the manifest and the latent variables.
The nature of these relationships between the
latent and the manifest variables is not absolute,
not deterministic, but probabilistic. In other
words, the fact that one belongs to a particular
latent class instead of to another enhances or
diminishes the probability of obtaining a par-
ticular scoring pattern on the manifest variables
but does not absolutely determine this pattern.
In terms of Zijderveld's fundamental ethos
types, as mentioned above, the manifest vari-
ables are the indicators for the three ethos
types—for example, trust in government,
societal commitment, degree of optimism/pessi-
mism about future developments, sense of com-
munity. Belonging to a certain ethos type, that
is, to a certain latent class, completely
determines the probability with which one
obtains a particular score on each of these
manifest variables.
The point of departure for a latent class
analysis is the observed frequencies (or propor-
tions) with which the scoring patterns on the
manifest variables occur: in the model of Figure
1, the frequencies f^fj 1 (or the proportions
P*?k?)> denoting the frequency (the propor-
tion) with which the scoring pattern (i,j,k,l) on
the manifest variables A,B,C,D occurs.
The sizes of the occurrences of the scoring
patterns, the sizes of the observed frequencies
ft?kY ( i n e proportions ptfkY) depend on two
quantities, on two parameters: the sizes of the
latent classes (e.g. the number of people who
are Amoralists, Moralists, and Immoralists),
and the (conditional) probabilities with which
the members of a particular latent class obtain a
score i on variable A, j on variable B etc. (for
example, manifest themselves as having trust in
the government, as committed to society, as
optimists etc.).
Essential to the latent class analysis model is
that the (conditional) probabilities referring to
different manifest variables are independent of
each other. This so-called assumption of local
independence is just another way of expressing
what has been said above, namely, that the
scores on A through D only depend on X.
Within a particular latent class, holding X con-
stant, there is no association between the
indicators. The manifest variables may have
strong correlations with each other but these are
only caused by the relationship each of them has
withX.
Following Goodman (1974a,b) and Clogg
(1981), the basic ideas of latent class analysis
may be formally expressed as follows in the case
of four manifest variables A through D and one
latent variable X having T latent classes (where
IT * denotes the probability of belonging to
latent class t, ir t^fY* denotes the probability of
belonging to the category (i,j,k,l,t) of the (joint)
variable ABCDX, IT ABCD denotes the prob-
ability of obtaining the score (i,j,k,l) on the
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
(joint) manifest variable ABCD, -n ^ is the
conditional probability of obtaining score i on
A, given one belongs to latent class t of X, and
the other symbols have obvious similar
meanings):
ABCDX _ ABCDX
_ i j k 1t t=1 i j k 1t (1)
71
This equation represents the assumption that the
population can be divided into T exhaustive and
mutually exclusive categories of the latent vari-
able X or, one might say, the assumption that X
exists. The essential assumption of local
independence is represented in equation (2):
ABCDX = X AX fiX CX DX
^ ijklt "t^it^jt^kt11!! (2)
Among others, Goodman (1974a,b) has shown
how to obtain (maximum likelihood) estimates
of the probabilities in eqs (1), (2). By
comparing the estimates irt?k? with the
observed proportions pt?k? or rather with
the observed frequencies ffff? through
standard chi-square testing procedures, one can
test whether the model is empirically valid—that
is, whether the postulated typology corresponds
with reality.
In the next section matters will be clarified
through an elaborate example of the standard
latent class model.
THE STANDARD LATENT CLASS MODEL: AN
EXAMPLE
European Value Survey: Variables and Data
The potentialities of latent class analysis will be
illustrated by data from the European Value
Survey, a recent survey into the basic value
domains of almost all Western European
countries, initiated by the so-called European
Value Systems Study Group. (For more
information, see among others: Stoetzel, 1983;
Harding, Phillips and Fogarty, 1986; Halman,
Heunks, De Moor and Zanders, 1987.)
From all value domains investigated in this
survey, we have chosen 'politics' and 'religion'
for illustrative purposes, restricting ourselves to
the Dutch survey carried out in 1981 among
1,221 persons randomly drawn from the popu-
lation of 18 years and older.1
85
The items selected to represent the political
domain are both strictly political items, like
party attachment, and items measuring the
political stand a respondent takes with regard to
important social and economic issues. The final
choices were guided by the theoretical work of
Zijderveld (1981, 1982) within the boundaries of
what was available from the European Value
Survey. The following nine items then have been
chosen (more detailed information about the
construction of these indicators may be obtained
from the authors):
1. Party Closeness: Respondent (R) feels close
to a particular party; does not feel close;
2. Left/right Self-placement: left; middle; right;
3. Political Interest: interested; not interested;
4. Trust in Parliament: R trusts Parliament;
does not trust;
5. Political Protest Behavior: R participated at
least by signing a petition; has not been
involved in any kind of political protest;
6. Desirability of Societal Change: change is
desirable; not desirable;
7. Importance of Equality vs. Freedom:
equality among people more important than
individual freedom; freedom more
important;
8. Basis of Income Differences: income
differences mainly based on performance
differences between individuals; not mainly
based on performance differences;
9. Running Business: owners to make all the
decisions;, owners and employees jointly to
decide; employees decide; don't know who's
to decide.
Conspicuously absent from this list is the
variable Party Preference or Voting Behavior.
This is due to the fact that the information
regarding these questions was not available for
the Dutch data.
As for the religious domain, items were
selected from several important religious
subdomains; viz. religious membership, religi-
ous activities, importance of religion for per-
sonal life and traditional religious beliefs. This
led to the following ten indicators:
1. Religious Denomination: R belongs to a
religious denomination; does not belong;
86 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
2. Religious Organization/Church Member- one tries several models with a different number
ship: member; not a member; of latent classes, and chooses the model that fits
3. Church Attendance: at least on Feast Days the observed data and lends itself best to a
(Christmas etc.); never; theoretically meaningful interpretation.
4. Religiosity: R considers him/herself a religi- We have tried a two, a three, and a four latent
ous person; does not; class model using, as everywhere in this article,
5. Religious Comfort: religion gives comfort the program LCAG (Hagenaars, 1988a;
and strength; does not; Hagenaars and Luijkx, 1987).2 The two latent
6. Importance of God: God is important in R's class model yielded an interpretable solution in
life; not important; terms of a division of people into 'left' and 'right'
7. Prayer: R takes moments of prayer; does (L2—the likelihood-ratio chi-square) = 1,805-5,
not take; df = 1,510). The three latent class model fitted
8. Personal God: R believes in a personal better (L2 = 1,3521, df = 1,497) and could be
God; does not believe; interpreted in terms of 'left', 'right' and
9. Decalogue: at least eight of the Ten 'middle'.
Commandments apply today; less than eight The four latent class model offered a still
apply; better and also more interesting possibility to set
10. Traditionalism: with regard to the tra- up a meaningful typology for the political
ditional Articles of Faith (belief in God, domain. The results are presented in Table 1.
Life after Death, a Soul, The Devil, Hell, The last row of Table 1 presents the prob-
Heaven, Sin): traditional believer (R abilities IT * which indicate that the respondents
believes at least five items); intermediate are roughly evenly divided among the four latent
(two to four items); nontraditional (at most classes. The latent classes 1 and 4 each contain
one item). about 30 per cent of all cases, and the latent
classes 2 and 4 each about 20 per cent.
The nine indicators of the political domain The remaining cell entries of Table 1 refer to
taken together make up a huge nine dimensional the conditional probability (TT*?) that a re-
table with 1,536 cells (too large, of course, to spondent obtains a particular score (i) on a
show in this article). As there are only 1,221 manifest variable (A), given the particular latent
respondents and because these indicators are class (t) he or she belongs to. For instance, the
correlated with each other, this table contains a cells at the upper left corner show that a
large number of empty or nearly empty cells. respondent who belongs to latent class 1
The same applies of course to the ten dimen- expresses with a probability of 0-84 as his or her
sional table for the religious items where there feeling that there exists a party he or she feels
are also 1,536 cells. This fact influences the close to; the (conditional) probability that
stability of the estimates of the parameters of the people from latent class 1 will not feel close to
latent class model and especially the possibility any party then of course equals 016.
of testing the model using the traditional chi-
The conditional probability of feeling close to
square test statistics. We will return to this
a party is the highest for the latent classes 1 and
problem at the end of this article.
2; it is small for latent class 4 and almost zero for
latent class 3. Members of latent classes 1 and 2
A Typology for the Political Domain are also more interested in politics than the
In applying the standard latent class model to members of the classes 3 and 4, as can be seen
the multidimensional table formed by the nine from the conditional probabilities with regard to
political indicators, one first has to decide upon the third item. Especially in latent class 2, one
the number of categories of the latent variable, has a high probability of expressing political
that is, the number of latent classes. This interest.
decision can be made on theoretical grounds if From the probabilities related to the second
one has a clear notion about the number of item it can be inferred that the first latent class
types. Otherwise, in a more exploratory fashion, may be characterized as the political right, the
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 87

TABLE 1 Four latent class model for the political items

Latent class
1 2 3 4
Items Conservatives Progressives Individualists Non-involved

1 Party Closeness: close 0-84 0-72 004 0-27

not close 016 0-28 0-96 0-73
2 Left/right: left 004 0-59 001 014
middle 0-31 0-39 0-79 0-72
right 0-65 002 0-20 014
3 Political Interest: interested 0-58 0-82 0-23 016
not interested 0-42 018 0-77 0-84
4 Trust Parliament: trust 0-70 0-40 0-24 0-35
no trust 0-30 0-60 0-76 0-65
5 Protest Behavior: yes 0-27 0-87 0-34 0-20
no 0-73 0-13 0-66 0-8O
6 Societal Change: yes 0-57 0-93 0-75 0-46
no 0-43 0-07 0-25 0-54
7 Equality: equality 0-26 0-61 0-32 0-60
freedom 0-74 0-39 0-68 0-40
8 Income Differences: performance 0-78 0-45 0-80 0-26
not performance 0-22 0-55 0-20 0-74
9 Running Business: owners 0-57 0-03 0-38 011
owners and employees 0-39 0-58 0-55 0-50
employees 001 0-32 0-07 008
don't know 003 0-07 0-00 0-31

Size 0-28 018 0-22 0-31

L 2 = 1,227-3, d f = 1,484.
Pearson chi-square = 1,602-7.

second class as the political left, and the remain-
ing classes 3 and 4 as the political middle.
Parliament is not highly trusted, except by the
political right (latent class 1); the political left
(latent class 2) has a high probability of having
been engaged in political protests, much higher
than all other groups.
Interesting are the outcomes for the item
'societal change'. As might have been expected,
the left people (from latent class 2) are the
strongest proponents of social change, but the
second place is occupied by latent class 3, one of
the middle groups. Among the right group
(latent class 1) and especially among the other
middle group (latent class 4) the probability of
advocating social change is much smaller.
With regard to the equality item, the latent
classes 1 and 3 stress the importance of
individual freedom, while the latent classes 2
and 4 are in favor of equality. More or less the
same pattern is obtained for the income
difference item: latent classes 1 and 3 see income
differences as based mainly on differences in
individual performances as opposed to latent
class 2 and especially 4.
That business should be run by the owners
alone is an opinion especially found among the
right (latent class 1) and to a lesser extent among
members of latent class 3; the left, latent class 2,
relatively favors businesses as being run by the
employees alone; latent class 4 relatively often
replies 'don't know'.
What then is the overall pattern that arises
from all these separate findings? In the first
place it is clear that those who belong to the
latent classes 1 or 2 are part of the traditional
political system albeit in different ways. The first
latent class consists of people who belong to the
political right wing, who have a consistently
conservative political outlook. The second latent
88 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES

TABLE 2 Three latent class model for the religious i

Latent Class
1 2 3
Items Religious Middle Non-religious Factor-loading

1 Religious Denomination 0-99 0-84 0-13 0-77

2 Religious Organization 0-74 0-32 003 0-65
3 Church Attendance 0-90 0-54 0-04 0-75
4 Religiosity 0-99 0-83 012 0-77
5 Religious Comfort 0-94 0-38 0-03 0-79
6 Importance of God 0-99 0-57 009 0-76
7 Prayer 0-91 0-62 0-23 0-63
8 Personal God 0-81 0-22 001 0-71
9 Decalogue 0-71 0-24 005 0-61
10 Traditionalism: traditional 0-77 014 001 0-81
intermediate 0-22 0-66 0-20
nontraditional 001 0-20 0-79

Size 0-29 0-36 0-36 52-9%

L2 = 1,046-1, df = 1,500.
Pearson chi-square = 2,085-6.

Note: (a) Except for the last item, all probabilities refer to the first, 'religious' category of each item; the last column refers to
the outcomes of a principal components analysis, one factor solution.

class may be characterized as left wing, as
consisting of Progressives.
The other two groups are much less involved
in politics (cf. items 1 to 5). The fact that they
place themselves in the middle of the left/right
scale may be more indicative of their feeling of
not belonging anywhere on this scale than of
their feeling that the middle forms their political
home.
The members of latent class 3 share with the
Conservatives (latent class 1) an individualistic
orientation (see items 7 and 8), but the former
are not as opposed to societal change and lay
less emphasis on the owners for running business
than the latter. They might perhaps best be
labeled as Individualists.
The final latent class 4 consists of tra-
ditionalists with an egalitarian and perhaps even
indifferent political orientation to the world.
They do not protest, favor the least societal
change, prefer equality above individual
freedom and are the most opposed to basing
income differences on individual differences in
performance; also they have a relatively large
share of the 'don't know' answers on item 9.
Maybe the label politically Non-involved fits
them best.
The fruitfumess of this typology ought to be
verified by relating these types, both theoreti-
cally and empirically, to social background vari-
ables and to other typologies, for example,
Zijderveld's typology mentioned above (that is,
by relating the Non-involved to Zijderveld's
Amoralists, the Individualists to his
Immoralists, and the Conservatives and Pro-
gressives to his Moralists). In the next section,
we will show how to extend the basic latent class
model in order to investigate these kind of
relations empirically. But, first, the results of the
latent class analysis of the religious items will be
presented.
A Typology for the Religious Domain
The outcomes of the latent class analysis for the
religious items are very clear and simple. A
two-latent class solution divides the respondents
into two groups which are of the same size:
religious and nonreligious people (L2 = 1,716-9,
df = 1,512). The three latent class model pre-
sented in Table 2 clearly shows that there is in
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
fact an underlying (and continuous?) dimension
'religiosity'.
The probabilities that members of latent class
1 give religious answers are very high, almost
'perfect'; the corresponding probabilities for the
third latent class are very low, almost zero;
latent class 2 occupies an intermediate position
on all items.
Contrary to the outcomes for the political
items, where we did have nominal level items
and found nonlinear relations between the latent
and the observed variables, we now have ordinal
level (dichotomous) items and obtain more or
less linear relationships between the latent and
manifest variables. In such circumstances factor
analysis should give about the same results as
latent class analysis. The application of an
exploratory principal components analysis to the
ten religious items pointed clearly toward a one
factor solution. (The first unrotated factor
explained 52-9 per cent of the variance of all
items; the second (best) factor only 8-3 per
cent!) The factor loadings are given in the last
column of Table 2.
With these results the advantages of latent
class analysis over factor analysis are nil. How-
ever, the outcomes might have been different.
In factor analysis one assumes a priori continu-
ous underlying variables and linear relationships
among all variables. In latent class analysis no
such a priori assumptions are made. From the
religious items a different typology might have
arisen such as: latent class 1—orthodoxly religi-
ous; latent class 2—nonorthodoxly religious;
latent class 3—nonreligious. In order to find
such a nominal level typology, involving non-
linear relations between the variables, one has
to use latent class analysis.
ELABORATING TYPOLOGIES; EXTENSIONS
OF THE BASIC LATENT CLASS MODEL
A latent class analysis as carried out in the
previous section, is just the first step for con-
structing a meaningful typology. As we have
said above: to be fruitful, a typology, for
example, the one that has been found for the
political items, ought to be related theoretically
and empirically to typologies in other value
domains and to the positions people occupy
89
within social systems. In this section we will
show how to extend the basic latent class model
to include these kinds of relationships.
Estimating Individual Latent Scores
Usually further analyses are carried out by
assigning the respondents to the latent classes on
the basis of their scores on the indicators, that is,
on the manifest variables (Lazarsfeld and
Henry, 1968; Goodman, 1974a,b; Clogg, 1981;
Schwartz, 1986). This of course parallels what is
customary in common factor analysis, where
most investigators will compute factor scores
and use these 'observed' scores for further
analyses.
Using the estimates of TI^CDX (see eq. (1))
one can obtain for each respondent an estimate
of the conditional probability that the
respondent belongs to a particular latent class
(belongs to category t of X), given the scores
(i,j,k,l) on the manifest variables (A,B,C,D),
using the formula:
ABCDX__ABCDX ABCD
i j k1
(3)
The respondent will then be assigned to that
latent class for which this conditional probability
is largest. Once having obtained 'observed'
scores X' for the latent variable X, the analyses
proceed as usual. X' may be correlated with
observed variables like education, occupation,
age etc. and also with other 'observed' latent
variables, say Y' and Z', resulting from latent
class analyses of other value domains.
But, as in common factor analysis, one
encounters two kinds of problems using this kind
of 'observed' score (except for some extreme
cases in which the latent variable is perfectly
related to a manifest variable and where one
does not really need a latent variable). (See
among others, Steiger, 1979; Hagenaars, 1985.)
People are assigned to that latent class to
which they most probably belong on the basis of
their scores on the manifest variables. But as
long as this modal probability is less than 1,
there is a possibility of misclassification, that is,
a possibility that a person will be assigned to the
wrong latent class. The misclassification prob-
abilities can be computed using equations like
90 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
eq. (3) (Clogg, 1981). For the three latent class
model for the religious items (Table 2) the
average probability of misclassification equals
only 005; but for the four latent class model for
the political items (Table 1) this probability is
0-21. In other words, one can expect that 5 per
cent and 21 per cent respectively of all
respondents will be assigned to the wrong latent
class. Because of these misclassifications the
'observed' relation between X' and an 'external'
variable, like age, may systematically differ from
the true relation between the latent variable X
and this external variable.
To the extent that misclassifications may
occur, a second and even more fundamental
problem arises, viz. that within the latent class
model the individual scores on the latent vari-
able X are not exactly identified. It is hypo-
thetically possible to construct different sets of
individual scores X (not X'), each set perfectly
in correspondence with the estimated par-
ameters of the latent class model, but not
identical to each other and sometimes even
negatively correlated (Hagenaars, 1985)! So, it
becomes unclear what the meaning is of the
'observed' scores X' if the underlying individual
scores on the true latent variable X which the
'observed' scores are supposed to represent, are
not uniquely identified themselves.
However, it is not necessary to work with the
'observed' scores X'. The relations between
several latent variables and between a latent
variable and observed, external variables can be
unbiasedly estimated without one having to
resort to individual scores.
Latent Class Models with More than One Latent
Variable
Right from the beginning attention has been
paid to latent class models with more than one
latent variable (Lazarsfeld, 1950a,b; Wiggins,
1955). An example of a two latent variable
model is given in Figure 2.
In Figure 2 Y and Z are two latent variables;
A to D are manifest variables. A and B are the
indicators of Y; C and D are the indicators of Z.
The scores on A and B are only directly influ-
enced by the latent score on Y; the scores on B
and C only by Z. Although A and B may be
associated with Z, this is only because Y influ-
FlGURE 2 Two latent variable latent class model
ences A and B and because Y and Z are
associated with each other and not because of
any direct effect from Z on A and B. The same
applies of course to the relations between C, D
andY.
Goodman has shown how this two latent
variable model can be formulated as a variant of
the basic model in Figure 1 (eqs. (1), (2)). One
may consider the joint latent variable YZ (with
R x S categories) as the 'one' latent variable X
with T = R x S categories. The relation
between the two latent variables may be derived
from the probability distribution IT* = -ITyf of
the latent variable X = YZ.
In order to ensure that the scores on, for
example, A depend only on Y and not on Z, as
the model in Figure 2 implies, one has to put
certain equality constraints on the parameters,
on the conditional probabilities (eq. (2)). For
instance: the conditional probability that a per-
son obtains the score i on A may only depend on
his 'score' on Y and not on his 'score' on Z. So,
in case all variables are dichotomous one
imposes the following kind of restrictions (here
only shown with regard to the manifest variables
A and C):
AYZ= AYZ AYZ _ 1I_AYZ
1 11 1 12
(4)
CYZ_ _CYZ CYZ_ CYZ
1 11- "l 21 1 1 2 ~ * 1 22
In this way, the basic latent class model actually
encompasses a very large variety of latent class
models with several latent variables whose par-
ameters can be routinely estimated using
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Goodman's (1974a,b) algorithm as implemented
in, for example, LCAG.
In order to relate the typologies for the relig-
ious and the political domain to each other, one
has to set up a two latent variable model. The
latent religiosity variable Y has three categories
(as above) and influences directly the ten relig-
ious indicators indicated in Table 2; the latent
political variable Z has four categories and
directly determines the scores on the nine
political indicators, presented in Table 1.
Although in principle the parameters of this
model might have been estimated, the comput-
ing time would have been enormous. The 9 + 10
indicators together make up an observed fre-
quency table of 1,536 x 1,536 = 2,359,296 cells;
certainly in combination with the 3 x 4 = 12
latent classes this made the problem too large to
handle adequately.
However, some simplifications could be intro-
duced without seriously affecting the results.
The latent class analysis of the religious items
led to the conclusion that the underlying latent
variable was a continuous variable 'religiosity',
which had very strong, more or less linear
relations with all manifest indicators.
So, it was decided to use only two latent
classes for the religiosity latent variable
(dichotomize the underlying religiosity con-
tinuum) and to select only three indicators for
this domain, viz. the items 5, 6, and 8 in Table 2.
These items are very strongly related to the
latent variable and may represent the underlying
dimension as well as the ten items. For the
political domain all items were used.
Although we still had a very large observed
frequency table (12,288 cells and only 1,221
respondents) and eight latent classes, this prob-
lem was manageable. The test statistics were: L2
= 3,522-6, df = 12,226 (and Pearson chi-square:
12,9301!). Before looking at the relations
between the two latent variables, it was first
checked whether the solution for this total
model could be compared with the two separate
solutions obtained above. Because in maximum
likelihood estimation methods all parameters
are estimated simultaneously and because the
religious domain was only represented by three
items, the results obtained here might have been
different from the results in the previous section.
91
TABLE 3 Relation between the political and the religious
typology
Religious Nonreligjous
Conservatives 0-21 010 0-31
Progressives 004 015 019
Individualists 0-06 016 0-22
Non-involved 010 018 0-28
0-42 0-58 100
However, this was not the case. All parameters
referring to the political domain were very much
the same as the ones obtained before and also
the outcomes for the religious domain reflected
the structure found before. We therefore do not
present these parameter estimates, except for
the 'new' parameters -n-yf. These parameters
give us the distribution of the joint latent vari-
able YZ, that is, the relationship between the
two typologies. They are presented in Table 3.
After percentaging Table 3 horizontally, one
learns that 69 per cent of the Conservatives
belong to the religious latent class; this percent-
age is much lower for all other political groups,
the lowest figure being 19 per cent for the
Progressives; the percentage 'member of the
religious latent class' for the Individualists is 29
per cent and for the Non-involved 36 per cent.
The vertical percentages of course confirm
this picture. Half (51 per cent) of religious
people belong to the Conservative latent class,
while among the nonreligious, the proportion
Conservative only amounts to 17 per cent. For
all other groups it applies that religious people
have a lower probability of being a member than
the nonreligious. The corresponding percent-
ages are: with regard to the Progressives: 9 vs.
26 per cent; with regard to the Individualists: 16
vs. 27 per cent; with regard to the Non-involved:
24 vs. 30 per cent.
So, at least for the Netherlands, Conservatism
and religiosity go hand in hand, while progress-
iveness and religiosity tend to exclude each
other, as do, to a lesser extent, political apathy
and individualism.
Relating Latent Variables to External, Manifest
Variables
Further insight into the meaning of a typology
may be obtained by relating this typology to a
92 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
E(ducation)
FIGURE 3 Latent class model with external variable
number of background variables. Such a model
has been depicted in Figure 3.
All variables in Figure 3 are manifest, except
for X. Essential to this model is that the relation
between the external variable Education (E)
and the indicators A to D are not direct, but are
completely mediated through the latent variable
X. As Goodman (1974a) shows, all parameters
of such a model, including the parameters con-
cerning the relation between X and E, may be
obtained by considering this model as a basic
model (Figure 1) with one latent variable and
five 'indicators' A to E.
It was decided to exemplify this approach by
relating the political typology to the following
three manifest variables:
Age — <31 years; 31-50 years;
>50 years.
Religious R does not belong to a
Denomination — religious denomination;
R belongs.
Education — age at completion of
formal education:
<16 years; 16-18 years;
>18 years.
The easiest way to estimate the relations
between the latent variable X and the three
external variables is to consider Age, Religious
Denomination and Education as one joint vari-
able ARE with 3 x 2 x 3 = 18 categories and
perform a standard latent class analysis with one
latent and ten manifest variables: the nine
political indicators plus ARE. A disadvantage of
this approach is that complicated higher order
interactions between X and the external vari-
ables are automatically included. This may
seriously complicate the interpretation of the
results. We will return to this in the next section.
Our starting point now is an observed fre-
quency table with 27,648 cells; the number of
latent classes of course equals four. The test
statistics are: L2 = 5,342-4, df = 27,528 (Pearson
chi-square = 29,0080!). Again, the parameter
estimates referring to the relationship between
X and the nine political indicators are the same
as obtained earlier. The estimates concerning
the relationship between X, the political
typology, and ARE are presented in Table 4
(albeit in the form of percentages instead of
proportions).
Table 4 is a rather complicated table. Never-
theless, a few things immediately catch the eye.
For example, as much as 25 per cent of the
Non-involved are older, religious people with a
low level of education while as much as 25 per
cent of the Progressives consist of young, non-
religious people with a high educational level.
But to get a better insight into this table one has
to perform more extended analyses, starting
with the bivariate tables, for example, education
by political typology, and introducing step by
step the other independent variables.3
These analyses made clear that religion was
directly and rather strongly related to the
typology in the sense that the Conservatives and
the Progressives were each other's counterparts
while the other two occupied an in-between
position. The Conservatives tend to be members
of a religious denomination and the Progressives
tend to be nonmembers. This of course is in
agreement with the results presented in Table 3.
The relations between education and the
typology were very strong, especially with
regard to belonging to the Non-involved or the
Progressive type. The lower the educational
level, the higher the chances of belonging to the
Non-involved type. There is a strong opposite
tendency for the chances of belonging to the
Progressive type. The higher the education, the
higher the chances of being Progressive. The
Non-involved type has definitely the lowest edu-
cation, while Progressives tend to be the most
highly educated. Furthermore, the Conserva-
tives and the Individualists mostly do not come
from the least educated category, but in equal
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 93

TABLE 4 Relation between the political typology and background variables: age, education and religion; vertical
percentages

Religious
Age<" Denomination^' Education< c > Conservatives Progressives Individualists Non-involved

Y • N L 0-2 1-3 3-4 3-2

Y N M 2-9 5-1 13-8 8-4
Y N H 4-5 25-4 9-6 4-0
Y R L 2-6 1-7 2-4 9-5
Y R M 6-4 5-2 14-1 3-7
Y R H 9-3 11-2 13-3 2-7
M N L 1-3 3-6 4-0 10-3
M N M 60 9-8 2-2 41
M N H 1-4 13-9 50 00
M R L 7-2 1-4 6-8 9-2
M R M 14-9 2-1 12-9 4-9
M R H 101 3-3 5-0 1-2
O N L 0-7 4-0 0-6 9-5
O N M 2-1 2-7 2-0 0-9
0 N H 1-7 2-1 0-5 01
O R L 15-2 2-0 0-7 25-5
O R M 8-4 4-3 0-3 0-7
O R H 51 01 0-1 1-4

Total 100 100 100 100

(379 -8) (224-5) (327-9) (288-8)
•ft1, 0-31 0-18 0-27 0-24

Notes: (a) Age: Y(oung): < 3 1 years; M(iddle): 3 1 - 5 0 years; O(ld): > 5 0 years.
(b) Religious Denomination: N(onreligious): R does not belong to a religious denomination; R(eligious): R belongs.
(c) Education: age at completion of education: L(ow): < 1 6 years; M(iddle): 16-18 years; H(igh): > 1 8 years.

amounts from the groups with average or high
education.
There is no special connection between age
and belonging to the Non-involved or Progress-
ive types. The support for the Conservatives
clearly increases with age. The Individualists
belong to the middle and younger age groups,
but definitely not to the oldest age group.
In sum, we have obtained the following extra
characteristics for the types in the political
domain. The Conservatives are the older, re-
ligious people, averagely educated. The Pro-
gressives are the nonreligious, more highly
educated people, from all age groups. The
Individualists come from the youngest and
middle age groups and are to be found equally
among the religious and nonreligious people
with an average education. The overwhelming
characteristic of the Non-involved is their low
education; there is no special relation with
religion or age.
RESTRICTED MODELS AND NEW
DEVELOPMENTS
As has been shown above, the standard latent
class model actually encompasses a large variety
of models. The standard, one latent variable
model can be transformed into a model with
several latent variables and/or several external
(background) variables. Many more modifi-
cations of the standard model are possible that
are useful within the context of typology
analysis.
If two or more items are equally reliable and
valid indicators of the underlying typology (the
latent variable X), one can put equality restric-
tions on the parameters to ensure the
94 SEARCHING FOR IDEAL TYPES
equivalence of these indicators (Gooodman,
1974a,b). For example, in the case of one latent
variable religiosity (X) and two religious items A
and B, one sets the probability of giving the
religious answer i on A equal to the probability
of giving the religious answer i on B, for each
latent class t: irf* = ir?f.
Through equality restrictions one can also
express the idea that the 'reliabilities' (Schwartz,
1985; 1986) of a particular item A are the same
for all latent classes. For example, in the case of
dichotomous variables: the probability of
obtaining the religious score 1 on A, given a
person is in the religious latent class 1 (X = 1), is
the same as the probability of choosing the
nonreligious alternative 2 on A, given one is in
the nonreligious latent class 2 (X = 2): trf? =
TT2 2 .
Another useful feature of latent class analysis
is the possibility to assign fixed values to the
parameters of the latent class model, especially
the extreme values zero or one. Sometimes a
manifest variable (A) can be conceived of as a
perfect indicator of the underlying typology (X).
This kind of relation between A and X can be
taken into account by imposing the following
restrictions: irt* = 1 if i = t, -rrf^ = 0 other-
wise. The manifest variable A and the latent
variable X have then in fact become identical
variables, and hence X often will be called a
quasi-latent variable.
Quasi-latent variables can be used for many
other purposes. Very often an investigator wants
to compare the typology found for a particular
group (e.g. nation) at one point in time with
typologies found for other groups or other
periods of time. Such cross-cultural or over-time
comparisons can be made through a latent class
model in which the group variable (e.g. nation)
or time variable (period) has been included as a
quasi-latent variable. (More details are given by
Clogg and Goodman, 1985, and Hagenaars,
1985, 1988a.)
Quasi-latent variables also play an important
part in setting up causal models with categorical
latent variables. As has been shown in the
previous section, background variables like age,
religion, and education can be related to the
latent variable. It was remarked there that the
relationships between these background vari-
ables and the latent variable might show very
complicated higher order interactions. How-
ever, it is possible to introduce the background
variables as quasi-latent variables and to exclude
from the model certain higher order interactions
among the (quasi-) latent variables (Hagenaars,
1988a). In this way it is possible to define
'modified path analysis models' (Goodman,
1973) with latent variables.
Apart from these modifications of the stand-
ard model there are several interesting new
developments. For instance it is possible to relax
the basic assumption of local independence
(Hagenaars, 1988b); models have been
developed in which item nonresponse is taken
into account (Fuchs, 1982; Fay, 1986;
Hagenaars, 1988c); procedures are available to
set up models with ordinal (latent) variables
connecting latent class and latent trait models
(Haberman, 1979; Clogg, 1979; Clogg and
Sawyer, 1981; Andrich, 1985).
At the heart of most of these developments is
the formulation of the latent class model as a
log-linear model with latent variables (see
especially, Haberman, 1979). For instance, the
standard model in Figure 1 can be formulated in
log-linear terms as follows, using Goodman's
notation (Goodman, 1978):
(5)
Especially Goodman in his many publications
has shown the potentialities of log-linear
analysis for sociological research. Extending
these insights to log-linear analysis with latent
variables, in other words to latent class analysis,
gives an impression of the many possibilities a
modern researcher has working with (ideal)
types. Standard, easy to use computer programs
in which the possibilities mentioned above have
been implemented, are available. To mention
just a few: Haberman's LAT, Clogg's MLLSA,
and Hagenaars' LCAG (Haberman, 1979;
Clogg, 1981; Hagenaars, 1988a; Hagenaars and
Luijkx, 1987).
EVALUATION
Latent class analysis appears to be extremely
 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
well suited for discovering and testing the 'exist-
ence' of ideal types. The idea of latent classes
which determine the observed reactions, corre-
sponds very well with the idea of underlying
types which govern overt behavior. Moreover,
latent class analysis does not presuppose interval
measurement, linear relationships, or underly-
ing normal distributions. These kind of assump-
tions are common in alternative techniques like
factor analysis, but are alien to the way most
social scientists have been using ideal types.
Especially through the work of Haberman and
Goodman, most statistical problems with latent
class analysis have been overcome. It is known
how and when to obtain estimates of identifiable
parameters. Statistical testing procedures have
been developed. Computer programs are avail-
able to routinely carry out the analyses.
Nevertheless, one big problem remains, as
with all forms of tables analysis. If the number of
manifest variables increases somewhat, the
number of cells increases enormously, and may
well exceed the number of respondents. Under
such circumstances the standard chi-square test-
ing procedures are of no use. (For some recent
developments and possible alternatives see
among others Koehler, 1986.) In the examples
above this came out clearly from the enormous
differences between the values of the Pearson
chi-squares and the loglikelihood chi-squares for
several models. (So in spite of what we have said
above, perhaps more attention ought to be paid
to the possibilities of using individual latent
scores.)
Although extremely small cell frequencies in
principle affect the stability of the parameter
estimates, it is more or less reassuring that, once
a satisfactory solution was obtained, dividing the
sample into more layers according to religion,
age and education which resulted in an enor-
mous table, did not noticeably affect the par-
ameter estimates.
So, many practical problems remain, but the
possibilities offered by latent class analysis chal-
lenge the theorist to subject his theoretical
notions to empirical tests more systematically;
and on the other hand, it offers the empirical
analyst an opportunity to perform analyses that
are more in line with what is theoretically
meaningful.
95
NOTES
1. The sample consists of about 1,000 randomly chosen
adults and an extra quota sample of about 200 young
adults aged 18-24 years. For more details about the
sampling procedure see Harding, Phillips and Fogarty
(1986). The EVSSG data set has been deposited with the
Economic and Social Research Council Data Archive at
the University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester,
Essex CO4 3SQ, England.
2. The program LCAG, along with the user manual can be
obtained at minimal charges for tape and mailing from:
Jacques A. Hagenaars, Department of Sociology,
Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg,
The Netherlands; electronic mail: R066JHAG@
HTIKUB5.BrTNET.
3. The results reported below are mainly based on a log-
linear analysis of Table 4. Ideally this log-linear analysis
ought to be carried out simultaneously with the latent
class analysis. We will return to this in the next section.
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