T h e S tructuring Principle: Political
Socialization and Belief Systems
D onald D. S e a r in g , J o e l
and A lden
U niversity o f N o rth C arolina, C hapel H ill
O f w hat interest to political science are chil­
d re n ’s attitudes? Almost without exception, our
socialization research has focused on childhood
political learning. But the assumption that chil­
d re n ’s attitudes are im portant has never been
convincingly dem onstrated. N either has this re­
search been justified by fully articulated theo­
retical statements. T he present article does not
pretend to provide the final word on these c o m ­
plex matters. R ather, it proposes only to clarify
one aspect of existing models, and subject this
to an empirical test.
Tw o theoretical models are involved.1 Each
offers relevance to childhood learning by link­
ing it with political outcomes. The first is an
allocative politics model, which seeks a linkage
with policy outputs. The other is a system per­
sistence model, looking toward the stability and
continued existence o f political systems. We be­
lieve that each model incorporates the follow­
ing assumptions: ( a ) T h e prim acy principle:
childhood learning is relatively enduring
throughout life; (b ) T he structuring principle:
basic orientations acquired during childhood
structure the later learning o f specific issue be­
liefs. It is this structuring principle which will
be exam ined and tested in the present paper.
Assessment of childhood socialization’s im ­
portance has been sidetracked by a widespread
belief. This is the notion that the primacy prin­
ciple must be tested in any such assessment.
And, since that test would require longitudinal
data which arc presently unavailable, the entire
question has been set aside. Yet, we shall argue,
theoretical relevance rests not upon the pri­
macy principle alone, but upon the structuring
principle as well. O u r point will be that the
m odels’ theoretical relevance is only as strong
as their weakest links to the dependent variable.
* For helpful comments on earlier versions of this
aper, we are indebted to Fred I. Greenstein, Kenneth
. Langton, Richard G. Niemi, and Jeffrey S. Obler.
The research was supported by a National Science
Foundation grant to the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill.
* For a discussion of these models, see David Easton
and Jack Dennis, Children in the Political System (New
York: McGraw Hill, 1969), Chapter 2.
J. Schw artz,
E. L in d
If these break, the models fail. If they hold, the
models are ready for further testing.
Because these models are poorly articulated
in socialization literature, it is essential to clar­
ify the range o f research to which o u r inquiry
does and does not apply. M oreover, the falsifi­
cation rules we propose have not been self-evi­
dent to colleagues in the field. The burden is
upon us, then, to m ake a convincing case that
o u r test is indeed a reasonable one. We shall
examine first the prim acy and structuring p rin ­
ciples, and then the allocative politics and sys­
tem persistence models which incorporate
them.
The Prim acy and Structuring Principles
In explaining political outcomes, one natu­
rally looks to adult attitudes, not to the attitudes
o f children. But if adult attitudes are the phe­
nom ena of interest, why have socialization in­
vestigators interviewed children? The reason is
that childhood antecedents are regarded as im ­
portant determ inants of adult attitudes. Hence,
childhood learning represents a legitimate focus
for political science inquiry.2 To a considerable
extent, this position reflects the work of child
development theorists who argue that what is
learned earliest in life is learned best, and is
least likely to be displaced by subsequent expe­
riences.* The belief that early political learning
*At the same time, it should be emphasized that
scholars engaged in this research do not suppose that
political man is but the political child writ large. Quite
the contrary. All agree that political socialization con­
tinues throughout the life cycle; that not all childhood
learning influences adult behavior; and that, in dynamic
modem societies, political attitudes are rarely trans­
mitted unchanged from one generation to another. The
childhood focus stems instead from an interest in ex­
ploring how political attitudes develop. Fred Greenstein
nicely summarizes this concern as an attempt "to
identify who learns what, from whom, under what cir­
cumstances and with what effects." Sec Children and
Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p.
12.
* Once again, Greenstein has succinctly summarized
this position: "In general, the more important a political
orientation is in the behavior of adults, the earlier it will
be found to emerge in the learning of the child” (p. 56).
In fact, a widely accepted belief holds that many politi-
1973 The Structuring Principle
specific political attitudes.s In addition, they are
assumed to be comparatively “central” or more
resistant to change than are specific attitudes.6
Perhaps the best know n operational distinc­
tion between the two concepts is associated
with the research o f public opinion specialists.
P roth ro and Grigg contrast general statements
such as “1 believe in free speech,” with specific
applications of these statements, e.g., “ Freedom
doesn’t give anyone the right to teach foreign
ideas in o u r schools.”11’ Herbert McCIosky has
elaborated this sort o f distinction into a three­
fold typology: personality, attitude, and issue
orientation . u The terms are distinguished by
descending level o f generality in the attitudinal
object: for example, from need fo r personal
autonom y, to affect for freedom o f speech, to
dislike o f speaker-ban rules. This approach can
be carried further through social psychologists’
attempts to disentangle the terms value and at­
titude. One com m on strategy has been to define
value as a broader attitude. Opinion is then in­
troduced as a third term, defined as a still more
specific manifestation of an attitude.12
F o r present purposes, we suggest positing a
*For example, see Greenstein, pp. 28-31.
’ Herbert McCIosky, "Personality and Attitude Cor­
relates of Foreign Policy Orientation,” in Domestic
Sources of Foreign Policy, ed. James N. Rosenau (New
York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 51-109.
10 James W. Prothro and Charles M. Grigg, "Funda­
mental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement
and Disagreement," Journal o f Politics, 22 (May, 1960),
276-94. See also Herbert McCIosky. "Consensus and
Ideology in American Politics," American Political Sci­
ence Review, 58 (June, 1964), 361-82.
" McCIosky, “ Personality and Attitude Correlates of
Foreign Policy Orientation," pp. 56, 92-93.
11Sec William J. McGuire, "The Nature of Attitudes
and Attitude Change," in The Handbook o f Social Psy­
chology, ed. G ardner Lindzey and Elliott Aronson, 2nd
ed. Vol. Ill (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley,
1969), pp. 151-52.
Chart 1. O rientations Frequently Employed in Political Socialization Research Among Children
Allocative Politics M odel
D em and-R elated O rientations
*1. Political party identification
•2. Sense o f political efficacy
*3. Sense o f political com petence
4. D uty to participate in politics
*5. O rientations tow ard: electoral behavior; interest
articulation; political decision m aking
6. Political interest
7. Qualities o f the good citizen
8. Perceptions o f social groups
•9. Liberalism —C onservatism
* O rientations to be exam ined in the following analysis
417
continuum by level o f generality in the attitudi­
nal object. In political socialization models,
items at the more general end of this contin­
uum will be called “orientations." Items closer
to the specific pole will be designated “ issue be­
liefs.” This, in fact, seems to capture the intui­
tive meaning accorded such distinctions in so­
cialization research. Thus, examples of issue
beliefs relevant to the models involve objects
such as political violence, racial situations, pay­
ing taxes, and aggressive national behaviors.13
Examples of orientations are presented in
C hart 1. These orientations were identified on
the basis of frequency of usage in contem po­
rary socialization research.
W e have divided the orientations into partici-
pation-demand and persistence-support cate­
gories. Anyone fam iliar with the literature will
recognize this as the distinction between learn­
ing connected with citizen roles and learning
connected with subject roles. T hey will also re­
alize that the classification is somewhat arbi­
trary. Several orientations found under the allo­
cative politics category seem equally at home in
the system persistence category, and vice
versa.'* This ambiguity reflects, in part, the
vagueness with which socialization models have
been presented in the literature. It also indi­
cates that some orientations may simply be rele­
vant to both outputs and persistence.
15 Dawson and Prewitt, Political Socialization, pp.
14. 86.
MParty identification, for instance, obvipusly relates
to the types of demands citizens make upon the policy
process. But party identification may also be viewed as
a support for the political system. This point has been
argued by Philip E. Converse and Georges Dupeux:
“Politicization of the Electorate In France and the
United States,” in Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse,
W arren Miller, Donald Stokes, Elections and the
Political Order (New York: Wiley, 1966), pp. 269-91.
System Persistence M odel
Support-R elated O rientations
*1. O rientations tow ard authority
*2. Benevolence o f authorities
“3. Responsiveness o f authorities
•4. Com petence o f authorities
*5. Affect for roles such as President. Policem an, and
institutions such as Suprem e C ourt
*6. T ru st in governm ent
*7. Political legitimacy
8. Patriotism
*9. Political cynicism
 418 The American Political Science Review
Theory: Allocative Politics and
System Persistence M odels
Some investigators, most notably Easton and
D ennis, have consciously attem pted to relate
socialization data to broader models of the p o ­
litical process. M ore often, however, research
has been far from explicit concerning its theo­
retical relevance. Still, it seems fair to argue
that most orientations have been introduced, at
least implicitly, un der one of two models c u r­
rently found in the subfield. These are models
o f a quite abstract order. T h e ir intent is to aid
us in thinking about the political process, and
the structure o f o u r discipline. T h ey depict
causal relationships am ong classes o f variables,
in o rd e r to evaluate the theoretical relevance of
these components. We do not propose to ex­
plore these models in their entirety, or even to
refine them any more than is necessary for o ur
immediate task .11* This task is to locate the
structuring principle within their schemata.
The allocative politics model is centrally co n ­
cerned with explaining policy outputs: who
gets what, when, how, and why in democratic
politics. Classes o f variables within its schema
are accorded theoretical relevance by showing
that they contribute to these outcomes. W ith re­
gard to mass publics, this promotes a focus
upon political participation variables, or de­
m ands in the political process.10 The allocative
politics model generally assumes that the politi­
cal orientations o f mass publics arc significant
determ inants of political demands, and,
thereby, policy outputs. U n d e r this assumption,
it becomes the task of socialization research to
explain the genesis of these adult political ori­
entations.
Clearly, the assumption needs to be exam ­
ined with considerable care. How might these
orientations affect political demands, and,
hence, policy outputs? First o f all, we should
note that the last link, that between dem ands
and policy outputs, is beyond the scope o f our
15 Models of this sort are, in effect, paradigms which
orient research and circumscribe the scope of a disci­
pline, or subfields within a discipline. In the present
case, this involves definitions of politics and other
equally complex issues. Although these models could
benefit from careful reconstruction, such a task is
clearly beyond the capabilities of the present essay. Wc
have attempted to take the models as they appear in
socialisation research, and refine them only to the poirt
necessary for diagrammatic representation and discus­
sion in an intelligible manner.
14 David Easton defines “demands" as follows: . .
an expression of opinion that an authoritative alloca­
tion with regard to a particular subject m atter should
o r should not be made by those responsible for doing
so." ( A Systems Analysis o f Political Life [New York:
Wiley. 1965], p. 38).
Vol. 67
inquiry.17 We begin by considering the prior re­
lationship between orientations and demands.
T w o alternative linkages arc suggested in the
literature.
The first is behavioral constraint. This at­
tempts to connect orientations with a subclass
of dem and variables which do not involve issue
beliefs. F o r instance, a voter with a strong
D em ocratic party identification m ay find his
ow n issue beliefs and the party’s policies no
longer in tandem . Nevertheless, when he enters
the polling booth, he “autom atically” pulls the
Dem ocratic lever. Similar argum ents have been
advanced in explaining other aspects o f politi­
cal participation, including the am ou nt o f that
participation itself. Although behavioral c o n ­
straint has never been satisfactorily articulated,
it does seem a potentially important linkage.
And, to the extent that the linkage is d em on ­
strable, it circumscribes the range o f allocative
politics research to which ou r test does not a p ­
ply. It is depicted as segment (c ) in Figure 1
below.
We focus instead only upon a second, and
alternative, linkage between orientations and
dem ands. Wc shall argue that the structuring
principle is one segment in this chain. Thus, the
larger chain relates orientations to dem and
variables by way o f intervening issue beliefs.
T he dem and variables include selected aspects
o f voting behavior and political participation
which are mediated by issue beliefs. W e wish to
emphasize that the issue-belief linkage seems
theoretically m ore im portant than behavioral
constraint. If issue beliefs have no role in politi­
cal participation and policy form ation, then
public opinion data would simply be irrelevant
to explaining policy outputs for dem ocratic sys­
tems. This emphasis on issue beliefs circum ­
scribes the portion of the allocative politics
model we propose to examine. The structuring
principle is incorporated here as the link be­
tween orientations and issue beliefs, segment
( a ) in Figure 1.
A straightforw ard statem ent of the full­
blown allocative politics model would begin
with childhood learning. Childhood political
orientations would persist into the adult years,
11 This is not to say that the relationship between de­
mands and outputs is unimportant: only that its exami­
nation is beyond the capabilities of our immediate con­
cerns. Like the relationship between supports and sys­
tem persistence, this involves the difficult problem of
relating individual to system level data. It also neces­
sitates further clarification of the variables involved.
See, Fred Greenstein, “A Note on the Ambiguity of
•Political Socialization,’ Definitions, Criticisms and
Strategies of Inquiry," Journal o f Politics, 32 (Novem­
ber, 1970), 969-78.
 1973 The Structuring Principle
A du lt Political
O rientations
Childhood
Political
Orientations
A d u lt
Experiences
Figure 1. G eneralized Political Socialization M odel: T he Structuring Principle
and thereby be directly related to specific issue
beliefs. This simple model is especially familiar
in treatments o f political party identification:
learned in childhood, the orientation persists
into adulthood to structure the learning of issue
preferences. But during the course o f the life
cycle, additional socialization experiences in­
tervene so that the original orientations u n ­
dergo some changes. Hence, it has been sug­
gested that adult experiences and adult orienta­
tions be introduced as additional variables.1*
This addition yields the more sophisticated
model presented in Figure 1. For these reasons,
the direct relationship between childhood politi­
cal orientations and adult issue beliefs (seg­
ment b) is not taken very seriously. Before a
citizen has even formulated his issue beliefs, his
early childhood orientations, while relatively
enduring, have eroded in the process of becom ­
ing adult orientations. The dom inant flow of
effects, then, proceeds through the relationship
between adult orientations and issue beliefs
(segment a ). This is the structuring principle as
incorporated within the allocative politics
model.
The system persistence model addresses itself
to quite different questions. Its focus is system
stability and persistence: support rather than
demand aspects of political processes.10 Q ues­
tions of this nature lead socialization research
“ Dawson and Prewitt, pp. 204-05; Kenneth P. Lang-
ton, Political Socialization (New York: Oxford Uni­
versity Press, 1969), pp. 14-16.
While demands can also contribute to system sta­
bility and persistence, the model usually emphasizes
support variables when it is discussed in the socializa­
tion literature.
419
P O L IT IC A L System
B E H A V IO R O utputs
A du lt
Issue •
Beliefs D em ands
and System
Supports
Persistence
toward the genesis of mass attitudes which u n ­
derlie support for the government, regime, and
political community. We propose to argue that
this model is, in one important respect, similar
to the generalized political socialization model
in Figure 1. It, too, incorporates the structuring
principle. T hat is to say, the relationship be­
tween many support orientations and system
stability is mediated by issue beliefs.20
Easton and Dennis have differentiated sup­
port into two dimensions, specific and diffuse.21
Support must also be clearly differentiated into
its attitudinal and behavioral manifestations.
The attitudinal variables, such as trust in gov­
ernment, arc depicted in our model as adult po­
litical orientations. By contrast, supportive a d s
are depicted under “ Political Behavior.’1 They
include demonstrations in support of political
institutions, or even serving as a m em ber of a
“silent majority" whose quiescence contributes
to stability and persistence.
Specific support behaviors are defined as
mercurial, quid pro quo acts. Like diffuse sup­
port, they are ultimately determined by favor­
able orientations toward institutions. But what
20 For example, citizens with strong affect for the
presidency may support this institution, contributing to
system stability by being uncritical of presidential
actions in domestic and international affairs: Dawson
and Prewitt, p. 59. More specifically, Americans arc
said to support their government by fighting its wars,
paying its taxes, and obeying its laws: William C.
Mitchell, The American Polity (New York: Free Press,
1962), p. 172.
11 Easton and Dennis, Children in the Political Sys­
tem, pp. 61-67. See also, David Easton, A Framework
for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 124-26.
 420 The American Political Science Review Vol. 67

distinguishes specific support behavior is its
contingency upon citizen approval o f the insti­
tutio n’s policies, i.e., upon intervening issue-be-
lief variables. The theoretical relevance of spec­
ific support orientations, then, assumes their
linkage with intervening policy preferences or
issue beliefs. N o doubt an orientation might
seem to bypass issue beliefs, directly contribu­
ting to system persistence through behavior in
support o f institutions (segment c ) . But, even
so. the orientation must always be accompanied
by issue preferences favorable to the policies of
these institutions (segment a ) . And these pref­
erences contribute to system persistence. We
say “ always” because, by definition, where
there is no issue-bclief approval, there cannot
be any specific support at all. This relation­
ship seems adequately represented in Figure 1.
Diffuse support is more complex. It involves
two alternative situations, only one o f which in­
corporates the structuring principle. We shall
first examine the situation that excludes the
structuring principle. Attitudinally, diffuse sup­
port is defined as generalized feelings of trust
and confidence in objects such as political insti­
tutions. This trust is akin to unconditional loy­
alty in the sense that it is given freely, regard­
less of perceived inconvenience. In short, the
orientation produces behavioral support of in­
stitutions even when the citizen does not ap ­
prove their policies. The citizen’s issue beliefs
are not, in this case, intervening variables be­
tween orientations and supportive behavior.
T h e relationship is confined to segment (c ) in
o u r model. This delimits the range o f system-
persistence research to which our test does not
apply.
But the holding o f a diffuse support o rien ta­
tion does not necessarily imply indifference to­
wards the institution's policies, or disagreement
with them. Indeed, as a result of his diffuse
support orientation, the citizen is likely to agree
with such policies more often than not. This
brings us to the alternative diffuse support situa­
tion which does incorporate the structuring
principle. W hen the citizen evinces agreement
with the institution’s policies, he is expressing
an issue belief. M oreover, as with specific sup ­
port, this issue belief contributes to system sta­
bility by expressing preferences supportive of
institutional policies. It docs so even if no fur­
ther behavioral acts are involved. And, it does
not seem unreasonable to suggest that diffuse
support orientations explain, in part, these issue
beliefs.
C hart 2 summarizes the range of research
which falls within the purview of o u r inquiry,
as well as research which remains beyond it. It
would be desirahle to be still more precise
about the variables involved. But since they
have not been sharply delineated in the social­
ization literature, such precision would require
m ajor efforts at theory construction that go be­
yond the limited concerns o f o ur paper. W e
have restricted our review to stating the models
as they are found in the literature and refining
them only so far as necessary to locate the
structuring principle within their schemata.
Research to which our inquiry applies is
summarized in the upper two quadrants of
C hart 2. The theoretical relevance of this re­
search rests upon the structuring principle. All
the political orientations considered below
have, in part, been accorded importance by the
structuring principle’s link to demands and sup­
ports. The two lower quadrants, by contrast,
identify research under the behavioral con­
straint aegis. Theoretical relevance in this re­
search does not involve the structuring princi­
ple, and is therefore beyond the scope of our
test. W'ith reference to the allocative politics
model, these orientations have been said to pro ­

C hart 2. The Structuring Principle's Relationship to Theoretical Relevance in Political Socialization Models

Allocative Politics M odel System Persistence M odel

(D em ands) (Supports)

1. Voting behavior based upon 1. Specific support

Issue Belief Links
(Theoretical Relevance
D ependent U pon The
Structuring Principle)
issue preferences 2. Diffuse su p p o rt with
2. O ther form s o f political participation policy agreem ent
based upon issue preferences
3. Issue beliefs which are perceived
and acted upon by elites

Behavioral C onstraint 1. Voting behavior unrelated I. Diffuse support w ithout

(Theoretical Relevance) to issue preferences policy agreem ent
N ot D ependent U pon The 2. O ther forms o f political participation
Structuring Principle) unrelated to issue preferences
1973 The Structuring Principle
mote actions such as “ autom atic” voting behav­
ior, quite apart from any relationship with issue
beliefs. From this viewpoint, orientations may
be interpreted not as proxim ate determ inants of
issue beliefs, but as remote yet “central condi­
tioners” o f political action.2- Easton and D en­
nis com e very close to limiting the importance
of childhood political learning to these diffuse
behavioral constraints.
If "behavioral constraint” were the only ra­
tionale for childhood socialization research,
there would surely be no point to o u r study.
But contem porary socialization models are far
more complex than that. Most o f this literature,
under both the allocative politics and system
persistence models, explicitly argues that child­
hood orientations persist into adult life and
thereby “ shape,” “structure,” and “determ ine"
the later learning of issue beliefs.23 O ur re­
search effort is designed to test these claims
rather than the more elusive behavioral co n ­
straint argument. In the rem ainder of this pa­
per, o u r references to allocative politics and
system persistence models will concern only
those aspects of theoretical relevance depen­
dent upon the structuring principle.
Thus far, we have seen how the primacy and
structuring principles provide theoretical justifi­
cations for investigating children’s attitudes.
We have further examined the m anner in
which the structuring principle has been incor­
porated in allocative politics and system persis­
tence models. N ow we are in a position to
make a case for the reasonableness o f o u r p ro ­
posed test. The argum ent is as follows:
C hildren’s orientations have been accorded
im portance in socialization research by virtue
o f the prim acy and structuring principles. The
primacy principle links them to adult political
orientations. T h e structuring principle contin­
ues the chain by relating adult political orienta­
tions to issue beliefs. Issue beliefs are related to
dem ands and supports, which, in turn, affect
system outputs and persistence— the touch­
stones o f theoretical relevance. This is a long
" A n example from system persistence research will
put this in sharper perspective. Easton and Dennis sug­
gest that early aflect for the President may be general­
ized into high trust toward governmental institutions.
This is particularly important for adults who may be
dissatisfied with the actions of incumbents such as Su­
preme Court Justices. At this point the early acquired
trust in government can insulate the institution from
citizen wrath. It prevents dissatisfaction with incum ­
bents from "spilling over” into acts of hostility toward
the institutions themselves. See David Easton and Rob­
ert D. Hess, “The Child’s Political W orld." Midwest
Journal of Political Science, 6 (August, 1962), 242-46.
" Easton and Dennis, p. 9; Hess and Tomey, De­
velopment o f Political A ttitudes in Children, p. 7; Daw­
son and Prewitt, p. 43.
421
chain. It is one formulation o f what Greenstein
has described as the goal of relating childhood
experience to adult behavior.24 W hen we ask
ourselves why children’s orientations arc an im ­
portant topic, this is one notably widespread re­
sponse found in socialization literature.
In order to dem onstrate the political im por­
tance of children’s orientations, each relation­
ship in this chain must be established em piri­
cally. The links we have examined most closely
are the primacy and structuring principles. We
shall test the structuring principle below. This
test will utilize data on adult orientations and
issue beliefs. It may seem strange that we test
the relevance of childhood orientations with
data on adult orientations. Yet, it is of little im ­
mediate consequence w hether or not these
adult orientations have childhood antecedents,
as asserted by the primacy principle. Similarly,
it is of little immediate consequence whether
demands and supports do indeed contribute to
outputs and persistence. The point is that theo­
retical relevance for childhood data depends
upon e v e r y link in the chain. We propose to
test one such link: the structuring principle.
D ata and Methodology
T he structuring principle will be tested with
data from two national cross-section samples:
the Survey Research C en ter’s (S R C ) 1968
Election Study, and the University o f N orth
C arolin a’s Southeast Regional Survey (S E R S ).
The SRC study interviewed a total of 1559 citi­
zens of voting age both before and after
Election Day, 1968. The SERS sample in­
cluded 1504 adults interviewed in M arch,
1969.2;5 Two data sets were employed for the
following reasons. Where orientations and issue
beliefs were identical in both studies, our intent
was replication. In other cases, the two sets
complemented one another, providing a wide
range of items similar to those found in con­
tem porary socialization research. We wish to
emphasize that m any items are either identical
or highly similar to those used in socialization
studies among children. Such studies seek to
trace the genesis of adult orientations which are
important in political behavior. They often
adopt SR C type items as measures of these ori­
entations. On the basis o f the primacy and
structuring assumptions, this procedure seems
to make good theoretical sense.
11 Fred I. Greenstein, Children and Politics, p. 163.
** The SERS sample is a national cross-scction strati­
fied by race, region, and size of place. This study was
a University of North Carolina survey coordinated by
Professors Robert G. Lehnen and Thad L. Beyle. It
was supported by a Science Development G rant from
the National Science Foundation.
422 The A m erican Political Science Review
The appropriate test for o rientatio n/ issue-
belief relationships is not as obvious as it may
seem. Thus, it appears foolish to expect every
orientation to predict every issue belief. There
is little reason, for example, to expect measures
o f authority orientations, such as approval of
policemen, to be associated with opinions about
the oil depletion allowance. Converse suggests
two types of links (sources of constraint)
which might be relevant here: logical and psy­
chological.2'* Logical constraints refer to logi­
cally necessary deductions from general princi­
ples to specific applications. A more com m on
type o f constraint is psychological. H ere the
sources of constraint do not follow logical
rules, but respondents nevertheless perceive at­
titudes as logically bound together. F o r exam ­
ple: “We must incarcerate the V ietnam ese p o p ­
ulation in o rder to liberate it.”
O perationalizing these links is a difficult u n ­
dertaking. Unless o u r purpose is to determ ine
w hether or not people are logical, it makes no
sense to examine only logically related state­
ments in the data. F o r the present test, we
are interested in w hether citizens display
any oricntation/issuc-belief relationships, not
w hether they see them as we do. This applies
equally to psychological constraints: We are in­
terested in how they perceive the world, not
w hether their perception fits an ideal type of
o u r own construction.
It is therefore necessary to proceed as
follows. Rather than positing logical or psycho­
logical relationships a priori, we must begin
with the m odel’s dependent variable: issue be­
liefs. These are the key links to dem ands and
supports in the political system. Fifteen issue
beliefs were selected from the SRC 1968 data,
and fourteen from the SERS 1969 data. T hey
were chosen for their salience and im portance
in American politics during these years. In ­
cluded are domestic policy items such as school
prayers and the use o f violence to suppress u r­
ban unrest, as well as foreign policy items such
as alternatives for Vietnam. W e reasoned that
to produce a m eaningful impact upon dem ands
and supports, orientations found in political so­
cialization research must be related to attitudes
concerning these key policy issues o f the day.
Political orientations extracted for analysis in­
clude all those items in the SR C data ( 1 3 ) and
in the SERS data (6 ) which were identical or
highly similar to items from socialization proj­
ects. This selection includes those orientations
generally regarded as most central: party iden-
MPhilip E. Converse, “The N ature of Belief Systems
in Mass Publics," in Ideology and Discontent, ed, David
E. Aptcr (New York: Free Press, 1964), pp. 109-13.
Vol. 67
tification, sense of political efficacy, trust in
government, and legitimacy.27
Findings
T he structuring principle suggests that politi­
cal orientations structure the learning o f spe­
cific issue beliefs. In exam ining this statement,
we proceed dow n a well-trodden path: relation­
ships am ong elements o f mass belief systems.
Recent public opinion studies indicate that such
elements m ay exhibit little constraint. Yet,
these findings are by no means an adequate test
of the structuring principle. F o r either they are
restricted to very few orientations used in so­
cialization research, o r they focus upon rela­
tionships am ong issue beliefs alone. Thus, while
suggestive, they provide only a backdrop for
the present investigation.
Proth ro and Grigg, in the first of these proj­
ects, found almost unanim ous support for gen­
eral statements expressing approval o f abstract
principles such as majority rule, minority
rights, and dem ocracy itself.2* But this consen­
sus disappeared on attitudes tow ard particular
applications o f the same principles, e.g., “Only
the well inform ed should be allowed to vote.”
Similarly, M cC losky discovered very high
agreement on general statements approving free
speech and opinion.20 Again, this consensus
contrasted with considerable disagreement over
support for applications o f free speech princi­
ples. Both findings can be interpreted as nega­
tive results for political orientation/issue-belief
relationships— although the orientations in­
clude very few items found in socialization in­
quiries.
In the same vein, Converse reports quite low
relationships am ong idea elements in the 1958
SR C election sam ple.30 And while Luttbeg
presents contrary results for two Oregon com ­
munities, his measure o f association, as well as
the items involved (local issues), m ake com ­
parison with C on v erse’s data quite difficult.31 In
” Several orientations in our analysis have been com­
bined in scales by other studies (e.g., political efficacy).
We did not employ such scales for the following rea­
sons: 1) they were rarely used in the socialization
studies whose theoretical relevance is under examina­
tion; and, 2) as summary measures, they would obscure
information about different attitudinal objects (e.g.,
honesty vs. benevolence of public officials) which we
wish to examine separately.
w Prothro ami Grigg.
29 McClosky, "Consensus and Ideology in American
Politics."
“ Converse, "The N ature of Belief Systems in Mass
Publics,” p. 228. See also Lloyd A. Free, and Hadley
Cantril, The Political Beliefs o f Americans (New Bruns­
wick, N.J.: Rutgers U. Press, 1967), Chapter 3.
*' Norm an R. Luttbeg, “The Structure of Beliefs
Among Leaders and the Public," Public Opinion Quar­
terly, 32 (Fall, 1968), 401-404.
 1973 The Structuring Principle 423

any event, both projects correlated issue beliefs association. This is a conservative measure of
with other issue beliefs, not with political orien­ rank order correlation appropriate for the ordi­
tations ,32 Hence, their results do not bear di­ nal data under analysis. It should he noted that
rectly on the model und er consideration. One we are exam ining only direct, first-order rela­
study which speaks more to the point, runs tionships between orientations and issue beliefs.
against o u r interpretation o f the Pro thro and While it is possible that more complex associa­
G rigg, and M cClosky findings. In a recent p a ­ tions are involved, we believe that c on tem p o­
per, M cClosky reports that isolationism, an rary socialization models have usually been re­
item akin to political orientations, is related to stricted to these first-order relationships. Each
beliefs on foreign policy issues including im m i­ orientation was correlated with each issue be­
gration, foreign aid, and defense spending.33 lief in the two data sets. The test was first exe­
Clearly some political orientations are likely re­ cuted using all categories (three or m ore) in the
lated to some issue beliefs. Still, the question independent orientation variables. But the c o r­
that needs to be answered is: how are o rien ta­ relations were so low that a decision was taken
tions used in political socialization research re­ to rerun the data using only high and low
lated to issue beliefs on key policy problems of scores on these variables. Thus, the T a u c test
the day? T o this task we now turn. for each orientation/issue-belief pair is quite
K endall’s T a u f is the measure of monotonic generous. It asks, what is the difference in issue
"C onverse, (p. 229) did use one political orienta­
belief position for those highest and those Iowr-
tion, political party identification, in his analysis. He est on an orientation? If any relationship exists
found that party preference was “ relatively uncon­ at all, it should show up between the high and
nected to issue positions.” low scorers. Results are presented in Tables 1
53 McClosky, “Personality and Attitude Correlates of
Foreign Policy Orientation,” pp. 92-103. and 2.

Table 1. TA U-c Relationships Between Political O rientations and Issue Beliefs (SR C 1968 D ata)

Issue Beliefs
i

! Overthrow Cuban G o v ’t
Evaluate Civil D isobedi­

Trade With Communist

China Admission to U N
Evaluate Legal Protests
Use of Violence to Sup­
G o v ’t Guarantee G ood
i G o v ’t Aid Health Care

G o v ’t Promote School

(1
Approve Pace of Civil

j Approve Foreign Aid

Policy Scale
1 S
press Urban Unrest

s
ence (Obstruction)

<
Rights M ovement

S >v
Living Standard

School Prayers

.St
75
a.
Integration

0 $
Countries

s *

Vietnam
3 -
1# R ow
* 13
Political Orientations Jj z >a M ean
i

Party Identification .3 2 * • 18* .14* .1 1 * .03 .1 7 # .0 4 .0 6 .07* .01 .0 2 .03 .0 4 .01 .0 0 .08

Sense o f Political Efficacy 1 .01 .0 0 # .10* .08 .01# .0 4 .09* .03 .0 0 .12* .10* .01 .03 .05 .0 4 .05

Sense o f Political Efficacy (1 .13* .0 8 , .03 .0 4 .07* .06* .13* .02 .05 .18* .1 0 # .11* .0 6 .0 0 .05 .07

Approval o f Conservatives .23* . 17,' .11 .18* .1 1 , .19* • 12# .1 0 .20* .10# .0 4 .1 8 * .13 .12 .13# .14

Evaluation o f G o v ’t Power .27* .25* .2 7 * . 19* .03 . 18* .1 5 * .07* .10* -08# .10* .11* .0 6 .0 2 .1 2* .13

Sense o f G ov’t Com plexity 09, .0 2 , .0 4 * .07* .02 .09* .22* .12* .14* .0 4 # .0 8 , .0 1 # .1 8 # .1 4# .0 5 , .09

G o v ’t Benevolence (Public
Officials Care) .07 .01 .10* .06* .02 .0 8 * .0 6 .01 .04 .15* .04 .03# .03 .01 -04# .05

Approval o f Policemen .08 .1 0 .0 5 .14* .11* .17* .20* .1 5 * .20* .03 .1 1 # .1 4 * .0 7 .0 6 .1 2 , .12

G ov't Responsiveness .0 2 .0 5 .08 .0 7 .0 2 .0 7 .07 .01 .0 2 .19* .0 2 .04# .0 4 .01 .0 2 # .05

Political Cynicism I (H onesty

o f Authorities) .08 .03 .11 .07 .05# .14* .0 2 .0 7 .0 2 . 16* .11 .12# .03 .03 .1 2# .08

Political Cynicism II (C om ­
petence o f Authorities) ,0 0 .0 2 . 09* .06# .04 .0 4 .0 6 .03 .0 2 .12* .01 .0 0 .01 .03 .02 .04

Trust in Government .07 .0 5 . 17* .09* .03 .1 0 .04 .04 .0 0 .11* .0 6 .01 .02 .01 .01 .05

Political Legitimacy .0 4 .08 . 19* .17* .0 0 .16# .07 .01 .02 .19* .11# .01# .0 2 .0 2 .10* .08

Key: * - x 1 significant at p < .0 1 , no evidence o f nonm onotonkity.

# “ X1 significant at p < .0 1 , evidence o f nonm onotonkity.
All others not significant at p < .0 1 .
424 The American Political Science Review Vol. 67

Table 2. TA U -c Relationships Between Political O rientations and Issue Beliefs (SERS 1969 Data)

Issue Beliefs

G ov’t Aid Health Care

Communist Countries
G ov’t Promote G ood
1
<

G ov’t Restrict Car

Use of Violence to
Approve Freedom
Law Enforcement
a

Cooperation with
5

Living Standards
2 efl

Justification for
(Civil Liberties)
ii

G ov’t Promote
a

Manufacturers
c H

Conservation
Cl § g 1
U*

Halt Riots
*■' o >

of Speech
B
1 s

Violence
I 2
0
i? a. Row
0 = a
Political Orientations OS I I s < Mean

Party Identification .22* .06 .07 .04 .15 .04 .29# .10 .0 2 .04# . 18* .0 7 .0 0 .01 .09

Sense o f Political Efficacy .0 0 .11 .04 .1 2 .1 0 .01 .03 .11 .01 .03 .05 .01 .08 .22 .07

Power o f Government .15 .18# * 12# .05 .02 .05 .15 .1 6 .05 .13 .1 6 .13# .0 0 .04 .10

Political Legitimacy •06# .01 .03 .03 .12 .02 .0 6 .05 .0 0 .00 .07 .0 6 .0 2 .08 .04

Trust and Approval o f City Officials .05 .03 .07 .07 .1 7 # .01 .1 0 .02 .02 .01 .04 .1 0 .01 .1 0 .06

Political Cynicism
(Competence o f Authorities) .02 .01 .02 .0 4 .02 .0 0 .0 2 .0 5 .01 .01 .02 .0 0 .02 .10 .02

K ey: * =** significant at p < .O I, no evidence o f nonm onoionkity.

# —xJ significant at p < .0 1 , evidence o f nonmonotonicity.
All others not significant at p < .0 1 .

The T a u f scores in Tables 1 and 2 are uni­ A P P R O V E F O R E IG N A ID in the SERS data,

formly low. They afford only a marginal im­ and the following pairs in the SRC data:
provement over those from the first test, which P A R T Y ID E N T IF IC A T IO N — G O V E R N M E N T
used multiple categories in the independent A ID H E A L T H C A R E
variables. We conclude that m any o f the most A P PR O V A L O F C O N S E R V A T IV E S — G O V ­
com m on orientations in socialization research E R N M E N T A ID H E A L T H C A R E
are generally unrelated to attitudes toward the A P P R O V A L O F CO N SERV A T IV ES— E V A L U ­
outstanding political issues o f the day. The only A T E C IV IL D IS O B E D IE N C E (o b stru ctio n )
T a u r exceeding .30 is that between P O L IT I­ E V A L U A T IO N O F G O V E R N M E N T PO W ER
— G O V E R N M E N T A ID H E A L T H C A R E
C A L P A R T Y ID E N T IF IC A T IO N and G O V ­
E V A L U A T IO N O F G O V E R N M E N T PO W ER
E R N M E N T A ID H E A L T H C A R E (.32 ) in — GOVERNM ENT GUARANTEE GOOD
the SRC data. The correlation is still lower in L IV IN G S T A N D A R D
the SERS sample.34 This may indicate instabil­ E V A L U A T IO N O F G O V E R N M E N T PO W ER
ity in the relationship, since the surveys w-ere — G O V E R N M E N T P R O M O T E SC H O O L
separated by only four months. If we adopt .20 IN T E G R A T IO N
as a marginal but perhaps acceptable relation­ A P P R O V A L O F P O L IC E M E N — E V A L U A T E
ship, then the pairs meeting this criterion in­ L E G A L PR O TESTS
clude P A R T Y ID E N T IF IC A T IO N — G O V ­ A P P R O V A L O F P O L IC E M E N — E V A L U A T E
E R N M E N T A ID H E A L T H C A R E ; PA R TY C IV IL D IS O B E D IE N C E (o b stru ctio n )
SE N SE O F G O V E R N M E N T C O M P L E X IT Y
ID E N T IF IC A T IO N — G O V E R N M E N T P R O ­ — E V A L U A T E L E G A L PR O TESTS
M O T E G O O D L IV IN G S T A N D A R D ; and
SE N SE OF PO L IT IC A L E F F IC A C Y — It is noteworthy that most orientations in
these pairs involve items which are predom i­
14The items are quite similar in both studies: (SRC) nantly affective or evaluative rather than cogni­
“Generally speaking do you usually think of yourself tive. Furtherm ore, post hoc, many o f these re­
as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what?”
(SF.RS) “Regardless of how you vote, when it comes lationships appear perfectly “logical.” But even
to national politics, do you usually think of yourself a cursory examination of both tables reveals
as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what?” ; m any equally "logical” relationships which
(SRC) “Some people say the government in Wash­ failed to materialize. F o r instance, by similar
ington ought to help people get doctors and hospital
care at low cost; others say the government should not reasoning it is nothing short of amazing that
get into this. Have you been interested enough in this trust in government has no relationship what­
to favor one side over the other? (If yes) What is your ever to Vietnam policy alternatives.3’ Those cit-
position?” (SERS) “ The Government ought to make
sure that all people have good health care.” (Agree— a The items were: “ How much of the time do you
Disagree). think you can trust the government in Washington to do
1973 The Structuring Principle
izens who best learned to trust their govern­
ment are apparently not the same ones who
support the governm ent’s authorities in their
most visible and perilous policy decisions (see
Table 1). Similarly, legitimacy orientations are
unrelated to opinions toward civil disobedience
(Tables 1 and 2 ) . 36 And political party identifi­
cation has no impact on school prayer (Table
1) o r progressive tax items (Table 2 ) . 37 This
list o f counterexamples can easily be extended
by perusing the tables. But such “ for exam ple”
presentations are bound to be inconclusive,
whether intended to support or refute the struc­
turing assumption. W hat is more convincing is
that only twelve relationships, and weak ones at
that, appeared out of a possible 279. Obviously
we cannot expect every orientation to be re­
lated to every issue belief. Still, the fact that the
relationships are so few and so weak (even
when com paring high versus low scorers), indi­
cates to us that these orientations are marginal
to dem ands and supports in the political sys­
tem. This seems strong evidence against the
structuring principle, and ipso facto, against
theoretical relevance for the childhood social­
ization orientations involved.
H ow shall these findings be explained? C o n ­
verse35 hypothesizes that relationships between
what is right?" Those responding “Always” were con­
trasted with those responding "Some of the time” and
"None of the time" (the middle category, "M ost of the
time,” was dropped from the analysis) for their answers
to the following questions: "Which of the following do
you think we should now do in Vietnam? 1) pull out of
Vietnam entirely, 2) keep our soldiers in Vietnam but
try to end the fighting, 3) take a stronger stand even if
it means invading North Vietnam.”
*• (SRC) “Would you say the government is pretty
much run by a few big interests looking out for them­
selves or that it Ls run for the benefit of all the people?”
“How about refusing to obey a law which one thinks is
unjust, if the person feels so strongly about it that he is
willing to go to jail rather than obey the law. Would you
approve or a person doing that, disapprove, or would it
depend on the circumstances?" (SERS) “The laws of
this country treat all people fairly: Agree—Disagree.”
r (SRC) “Some people think it is all right for the
public schools to start each day with a prayer. Others
feel that religion does not belong in the public schools
but should be taken care of by the family and the
church. Have you been interested enough in this to
favor one side over the other? (If yes) Which do you
think?” (SERS) “Taxes should be based on how much
money people earn: Agree—Disagree."
* Philip E. Converse, “New Dimensions of Meaning
for Cross-Section Sample Surveys in Politics," Interna­
tional Social Science Journal, 16 (1964), 19-34, esp.
p. 27. It is for this reason that Robert Lane suggests we
attempt to explain political issue beliefs by motivational
variables (e.g., “Of what use to you is this opinion?” )
rather than by political orientations. Political Thinking
and Consciousness (Chicago: M arkham, 1969), p. 22.
But this would be a largely complementary enterprise: a
functional explanation (the role of the issue belief in
425
background variables and issue beliefs may be
low simply because issue beliefs are quite u n ­
stable. H e further suggests that, as we drop be­
low the most educated ten per cent of the
American populace, all sources of constraint
decline rapidly. Constraint presupposes infor­
mation about the issues. A nd level of inform a­
tion, in turn, is structured by the importance
individuals attribute to these issues. F rom this
viewpoint, it is interesting that a sophisticated
belief system has been discovered for the race
issue in an American subgroup: D etroit’s
black community. These respondents care
deeply about racial matters. They therefore col­
lect the information needed to develop a con­
strained belief system on this subject.39 It may
well be that the majority of American adults
are insufficiently concerned with key political
issues to seek m uch information on such topics.
Perhaps it is even more unusual to find people
who consciously attempt to link issue beliefs to
their general principles or orientations. This
suggests that many citizens have com partm en­
talized a symbolic set o f political orientations
having little relevance for their reactions to ev­
eryday political stimuli.
On the basis o f this overview, let us re-exam­
ine Tables 1 and 2 for a closer look at two key
theoretical notions from the socialization litera­
ture.
Political party identification is widely cited
as the outstanding example of how political ori­
entations serve as frames of reference for o r­
dering issue beliefs. The American Voter d e m ­
onstrated that in 1952 and 1956, party identifi­
cation accounted for some variance in foreign
and domestic policy views. Indeed, the structur­
ing principle seems to have been introduced to
socialization theory by projecting such party
identification findings to cover basic political
orientations in general. Thus, party identifica­
tion is said to function as an organizing cogni­
tive structure. It provides cues for evaluating
newly emergent issues. Most issues involve
matters which are complex and distant from
the ordinary' citizen’s perspective. These am bi­
guities are resolved by adopting the party’s po-
the self system) as opposed to a predictive or genetic
explanation. For further discussion of linkage between
orientatioas and issue beliefs, see Fred I, Greenstein,
Personality and Politics (Chicago: Markham, 1969), pp.
124-25.
,n Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass
Publics,” p. 213; Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. Walker,
"The Meanings of Black Power: A Comparison of
While and Black Interpretations of a Political Slogan,"
American Political Science Review, 64 (June, 1970),
380-82.
426 The American Political Science Review
sition rather than struggling with each issue on
its own merits.40
This cue-giving attribute is conceptualized as
centrality. In ou r data, orientations with the
highest mean relationships to issue beliefs will
be regarded as the most central. The relevant
inform ation is presented in row means for both
tables. H ere we see that party identification is
not at all distinguished by unusually strong cen­
trality. In fact, it is surpassed in the SRC data
by approval of conservatives, evaluation of
government power, sense of government com­
plexity, and approval of policemen. The expec­
tation o f a relationship between party identifi­
cation and issue beliefs assumes, o f course, that
parties have distinct issue positions— and that
these positions are perceived by the individual.
It would seem reasonable, then, to expect rela­
tionships only where these conditions are met.
But regardless of such considerations, if party
identification is related to only one out of fif­
teen leading issues of the day (two out of fo ur­
teen in the SERS d a ta ), then it is hardly possi­
ble to regard it as an organizing cognitive struc­
ture for such issues.
Other evidence supports this revised interpre­
tation of party identification’s centrality. Hess
and T orney found that the item was indepen­
dent o f most political attitudes expressed by ele­
mentary school children. And this indepen­
dence does not seem to wane during the adult
years. In Converse’s analysis o f 1958 SRC
election data, party identification was relatively
unconnected to preferences on a selection of
domestic and foreign issues. Similarly, rank o r­
der correlations reported by Converse and Du-
peux yielded very low' relationships in United
States data, though somewhat stronger ones ap­
peared for French voters who are party identifi­
ers (less than half the total sam ple). Finally,
Butler and Stokes argue that their British data
provide rem arkably little evidence that party
identification serves to structure the voter’s
views on key political issues.41
It is an awkward point that the structuring
principle’s empirical basis appears to have been
these putative cue-giving properties of party
44 Herbert H. Hyman, Political Socialization, pp. 46-
47, 74-75; Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren
E. Miller, ana Donald E. Slokcs, The American Voter
(New York: Wiley, 1960), pp 128-36; 194 ff.
11 Hess and Torncy, Development o f Political A tti­
tudes in Children, p. 211; Converse, “The Nature of
Belief Systems in Mass Publics,"’ pp. 228-29; Philip E.
Converse and Georges Dupcux, “ Politicization of the
Electorate in France and the United States,” in Elec­
tions and the Political Order, ed. Angus Campbell, et
al. (New York: Wiley, 1966). p. 287; and David Butler
and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (Lon­
don: St. Martins Press, 1969), pp. 193-94.
Vol. 67
identification. The original evidence was never
fully convincing. F o r example, issue items in
The American Voter were introduced through
sum m ary measures. Despite the demonstration
o f some relationships with party identification,
the results were unclear regarding discrete links
between party identification and separate issue
beliefs. Yet these are the most theoretically ap ­
propriate links for assessing party identifica­
tion’s impact upon demands and supports in so­
cialization models. In retrospect, the best evi­
dence for party identification’s “structuring” or
“ filtering” properties did not involve issue be­
liefs, but rather phenomena such as perception
of candidates. Since the instability o f issue be­
liefs is complemented by stability in party iden­
tification, it would indeed be paradoxical had
the two turned out highly related.
A nother widespread assertion deserving
comment is the argument that the greater a po­
litical orientation’s importance in adult behav­
ior, the earlier it is learned during childhood.
While “im portance” has been associated with
various denotations, it is often defined as im ­
pact upon demands and supports. H ere we
shall investigate the assertion by examining the
portion o f this impact mediated by issue beliefs.
Following the allocative politics and system
persistence models, this can be measured by an
orientation’s perform ance on the structuring
principle, i.e., by its relationship with beliefs
concerning leading political issues of the day.
Now, a major finding in socialization research
is that benevolent images (affect and trust) of
institutions and political leaders are learned by
very young children; by contrast, political cyni­
cism is known to be learned later, during ado­
lescence or young adulthood. Thus, for adults,
we would expect trust in government to be
more important than political cynicism in the
sense that it should be more strongly related to
o u r issue beliefs .42 This is not borne out by the
data, which show no substantial differences be­
tween the two types o f items. In the SERS
study (Table 2) trust and approval of city offi­
cials has a row mean of .06 compared with .02
for political cynicism.4* And, in the SRC data
45See Greenstein, Children and Politics, p. 155.
41 Since city ofTicials have little or no capacity to af­
fect certain types of public policy, the following items
were excluded from these calculations: approve free­
dom of religion, approve freedom of speech, govern­
ment promote good living standards, civil disobedience,
government restrict car manufacturers, cooperation
with communist countries, and approve foreign aid. In
addition, the political cynicism item refers to national
authorities. Given findings on the generalization of au­
thority attitudes, it does not seem too far fetched to use
this item as an indicator of attitudes toward local au­
thorities as well.
1973 The Structuring Principle
(Table 1), trust in government displays a row
mean of .05 compared with .08 and .04 for the
two political cynicism measures.
O ur negative findings indicate to us that if
the proposition that early learning determines
adult importance has any force, it may be re­
stricted to particular types of orientations.
Once again, a sweeping generalization seems to
have been extrapolated from party identifica­
tion research. Party identification was found to
be learned very early in life. It is also believed
important in adulthood for “ filtering” issue
preferences. The finding and the belief are eas­
ily connected and generalized to other orienta­
tions. We have already argued that its “fil­
tering" properties are exaggerated. But even
were they substantial, the row means in Tables
1 and 2 indicate that party identification is not
more strongly related to issue beliefs than are
the political cynicism orientations which are
learned later in life. The early learning adult
importance proposition does not even apply to
its party identification touchstone.
Because a large body of research regards
nonpolitical personality factors as determinants
of political attitudes and behavior, we deter­
mined to explore our findings further by ana­
lyzing selected personality factors and by per­
forming a multiple regression test on the politi­
cal orientations. It is assumed that childhood is
a period of relatively little direct political learn­
ing. At the same time, childhood is character­
ized by politically relevant learning in the form
of various personality factors.44 These arc ex­
pected to persist into adulthood and thereupon
structure political attitudes and behavior.411
During the 1930s and 1940s, however, num er­
ous studies experienced very little success in at­
tempting to relate personality factors to politi­
cal beliefs.4* The same personality characteris­
tics, it was suggested, produced quite different
issue preferences depending upon the issue
preferences’ functions in an individual’s self
system. We decided to perform another Tau,.
analysis for the same issue beliefs, but this time
using personality factors as independent vari­
ables. This test provides a baseline for further
44 It may appear that the concept “ personality factors"
as used in this context, does not reflect a distinct set of
variables, much less any developed theory of personality
and politics. Our choice of “ personality factors,” ana
their distinction vis-&-vis “political orientations," was
dictated by past literature, availability of data, and the
greater prima facie distance between these factors and
issue beliefs than is the case with political orientations.
This “distance" reflects the distinguishing characteristic
of personality factors: independence of short term con­
textual variation.
45 Easton and Dennis, pp. 77-79.
“ Greenstein, Personality and Politics, p. 19.
427
interpretations of the political orientation T a u c
scores.
In Tables 3 and 4 we see that results are very
similar to our earlier tests with political orienta­
tions: only nine relationships out of a possible
219 exceeded .20. A single relationship ex­
ceeded .30 in the SERS data (C O N F O R M IS M
— G O V E R N M E N T R EST R IC T C A R M A N ­
U F A C T U R E R S ), and only the following two
did so in the SRC data: APPROVE
NEGROES— GOVERN M EN T PR O M O T E
SCH O O L IN T E G R A T IO N , and A P P R O V E
N E G R O E S — A P P R O V E PA CE O F C IV IL
R IG H T S M O V E M E N T .17 The last two issue
items seem to be distinguished by references to
concrete policy problems particularly salient
for the orientations which predict them. U n fo r­
tunately, the data are inadequate to support
further speculation along these lines. While it
is clear that there are other equally “logical’’
relationships which did not materialize in the
data, all the dependent variables involve atti­
tudes toward key political issues of the day;
and it is very difficult to see how the personal­
ity factors might “underlie” them in any causal
sense. We wish to emphasize the similarity be­
tween these findings and those for political ori­
entations employed in socialization research.
Apparently such political orientations are no
more related to issue beliefs than arc the sort of
personality factors for which negative results
were discovered several decades ago.
One suggestion frequently found in socializa­
tion literature might go some distance toward
explaining why our political orientation/issue-
belief relationships are so weak. This is the a r­
gument that issue beliefs are determined by
combinations of underlying orientations rather
than by any single orientation. We attempted to
examine this alternative through an exploratory
multiple regression analysis between each issue
belief and sets of five political orientations. Ori­
entations used in the analysis are the five best
predictors for each issue belief. They were en­
tered in the order of their strength as single in­
dependent variables. The test is exploratory be­
cause data arc ordinally scaled and fail thereby
to meet the interval scale assumptions of multi­
ple regression analysis. Findings are sum m a­
rized in Tables 5 and 6.
Results in Tables 5 and 6 show that the
“complex substructure” explanation may not be
41 The personality items are: Conformist—“When
talking with my friends. I should avoid topics that would
lead to arguments." Approve Negroes—"There are
many groups in America that try to get the government
of the American people to see things more their way.
We would like to get your feelings toward some of these
groups: Negroes" (score on feeling thermometer).
 428 The American Political Science Review Vol. 67

Table 3. TAU-c Relationships Between Personality Factors ami Issue Reliefs (SRC 1968 Data)

Issues Reliefs

,
i

Evaluate Civil Disobedi­

Overthrow Cuban G ov’t

Trade With Communist
2

G ov’t Aid Health Care

5

Use of Violence to Sup-

G ov’t Promote School

Evaluate Legal Protests

Approve Pace of Civil

Policy Alter­

Policy Scale
Approve Foreign Aid
o

press Urban Unrest

1

. .. . .

ence (Obstruction)
Rights Movement
c
S . 0

School Prayers
*
i f S

Integration
3 5 ■o

Countries
<

natives
Vietnam

Vietnam
15
0.> 75 « 1 Row
Personality Factors OJ u i« 0 Mean

1
R eligious Fundamentalism .0 2 .03 .01 .0 5 .18* L w .17* .11* .07* .03 .16* .08* .21* .0 4 .1 0 / .08

Approve Negroes .0 9 .13* .34* .3 5 * .01 .2 3 / .16* .09 .1 0 .19* .18* .0 9 / .11 .05 .1 5 / .15

Materialistic Optimism (Self) .0 4 .0 0 .03 .01 .0 9 / .04 .1 3 * .0 0 .01 .1 0 .0 2 .0 4 .0 0 .05 .03 .04

Fatalism . 15* .09* .01 .0 1 / .0 7 / .0 3 / .02 .00 .03# .1 0 / .01* .13* .07 .0 2 .0 9 / .06

Personal EUka cy .Ilf .0 8 / .02 .0 4 .0 4 .06# .0 4 .0 4 .03 .0 0 .0 6 .03 .0 6 .01 .0 2 .04

Personal Security in
Environment .I lf .1 1 * .05 .0 0 .02 .0 8 / .0 2 / .0 8 / .0 9 * .05 .01 .09* .05 .01 .11# .06

Personal Competence .12# .1 3 / .05 .03 .0 7 / .0 7 / .04 .03 .03 .0 8 / .02 .11* .07* .03 .08* 06

Personal Contentment .1 5 1 .18* .03 .01 .08 .02 .08 .1 0 # .1 3 / .01 .0 4 .12 .0 3 .0 4 .09 .08

Trust in Others . 18* .1 2 / .01 .02 .0 6 / .0 0 / .04 .01# .08 .15* .0 5 .08* .0 5 .05 .0 2 /, .06

Key: significant at p < .0 1 , no evidence o f nonmonotonicity.

f significant at p 5 - ° l . evidence o f nonmonotonicity.
All others not significant at p < .O I.

as sound as it seems by virtue o f common sense test, our ability to predict issue beliefs does not
alone. The highest R2 (proportion o f variance seem substantially improved by using linear
explained) obtained with these orientation combinations of orientations. The original ver­
combinations is .15 (see Table 5 ) , and the re­ dict still stands: M any orientations employed in
sults for most issue beliefs arc considerably socialization research appear unrelated to be­
lower than that. On the basis of this provisional liefs toward key political issues.

Table 4. TAU-c Relationships Between Personality Factors and Issue Beliefs (SER S 1969 Data)

Issue Beliefs

1:
G ov’t Aid Health Care

G o v ’t Promote School

Communist Countries

Approve Foreign Aid

G ov’t Promote G ood

Gov't Restrict Car

Use of Violence to
Approve Freedom

Approve Freedom

Progressive Taxes

e
Cooperation with
Living Standards

O u
s?
Manufacturers

£
Evaluate Civil

0c
Disobedience

C
11
of Ketigion

i-s
Integration

©
Halt R iots
of Speech

Ia sS
Personality Factors is oo
So Row
Mean

Sense o f Personal Efficacy -.5# .05 .02 .07 .02 .08 .21* .0 8 / .01 .0 6 / .16# .02 .04 .04 .07

Responsiveness o f Environment .11 .00 .04 .04 .09* .0 , .0 8 / .02 .01 .1 2 / .1 4 / .04 .03 .02 .06
Fatalism .14* .01 .02 .06 .... .03 .16* .00 .01 .14* .1 0 / .01 .07 .0 5 / .07

Relativism .04 .0! .0 6 / .01 .08 .01 .04 .03 .02 .10* .06 .03 .02 .01 .04

Conformism .1 6 / .03 .04 .0 4 / .06 .05 .2 8 / .06 .05 .11 .3 3 / .10 .01 .1 2 / .10

Person;)! Conservatism .2 0 / .14 .05 .05 .12 .01 .21 .01 .02 .10 .12 ,06 .0 0 .07 .08
i
Key: *==** significant at p < .0 1 , no evidence o f nonmonotonicity.
significant at p < .0 1 , evidence o f nonmonotonicity.
All others not significant at p < .0 1 .
1973 T he Structuring Principle 429

But theoretical relevance for m uch childhood Table 6. M ultiple Regression Analysis: Political
socialization data depends on this relationship; O rientations* and Issue Beliefs (SERS 1969 D ata)
otherwise the data lose their significance as a n ­
chors in a chain leading to dem ands and sup­ Issue Beliefs M ultiple R R*
ports, and, ultimately, to system outputs and
persistence. O ur results therefore cast consider­ G overnm ent aid health care .31 .10
able doubt upon the im portance o f childhood Law enforcem ent (civil liberties) .20 .04
A pprove freedom of religion .10 .01
data collected un der allocative politics and sys­
A pprove freedom of speech .19 .03
tem persistence models.48 G overnm ent prom ote school
It may be a fundam ental e rro r to assume integration .22 .05
that average citizens possess such highly inte­ Progressive taxes .15 .02
grated belief systems in the first place. This re­ G overnm ent prom ote good living
flects a presumption that issue beliefs must al­ standards .32 .10
ways be grounded (logically o r otherw ise) in Use o f violence to halt riots .16 .03
“ underlying” o r “e m bed ded” inner characteris­ G overnm ent prom ote conservation . 12 .02
Evaluate civil disobedience .17 .03
tics. But most policy issues are extraordinarily
G overnm ent restrict car
complex. They involve a changing kaleidoscope m anufacturers .32 .10
of situations and symbols. Even a philosopher Justification for violence .18 .03
would have difficulty deducing rigorous issue C ooperation with com m unist
positions from a set of basic principles o r orien­ countries .19 .04
tations. And intellectual capacities are not the A pprove foreign aid .29 .08

* It should be noted that our results can be generalized

* The political orientations used in this analysis are
only to a national population. It is, o f course, still
possible that some orientation/issue belief relationships the five best predictors for each issue belief (see
may be present for distinct subgroups within this T able 3). They were entered in the order o f their
population. Thus far, socialization research has usually strength as single independent variables.
been directed toward orientations learned by all mem­
bers of a society. If research were focused upon orienta­
tions parlicularitistic to subgroups, however, the struc­ sole prerequisite either. F rom this viewpoint,
turing principle’s validity would bear further investiga­ what is more surprising than the lack o f logical
tion in these contexts. constraints in ou r data, is the absence o f any
constraints whatever. The construction o f links
Table 5. M ultiple Regression Analysis: Political o r constraints requires considerable time and
Orientations* and Issue Beliefs (SR C 1968 D ata) inform ation on the part o f the individual. It
simply seems chimerical to expect the average
Issue Beliefs M ultiple R R* citizen to m uster the time and inform ation re­
quired for serious application to the task.4”
G overnm ent aid health care .35 .12
G overnm ent guarantee good Concluding R em arks
living standard .33 .11 Political socialization research seeks to e n ­
G overnm ent prom ote school
rich o u r explanations o f political outcomes.
integration .39 .15
A pprove pace o f civil rights
This it does by investigating attitudes which de­
m ovem ent .32 .11 termine dem ands and supports in the political
School prayers .25 .06 system. Obviously, these attitudes are those of
Use o f violence to suppress urban adults; attitudes com m unicated to political
unrest .30 .09 elites. W hy, then, we wondered, has socializa­
Evaluate legal protests .28 .08 tion research focused almost entirely upon
Evaluate civil disobedience (laws) .18 .03 young children? One answer lies in the view
Evaluate civil disobedience
that, ( a ) political orientations are learned in
(obstruction) .18 .03
A pprove foreign aid .23 .09 childhood and persist into the adult years; and,
T rade with com m unist countries .16 .03 (h ) they thereupon structure the learning of
Vietnam policy alternatives .26 .07 specific issue beliefs, the immediate determ i­
C hina adm ission to U .N . .36 .13 nates o f dem ands and supports. These have re­
O verthrow C uban governm ent .13 .02 mained untested assumptions; untested, in part,
Vietnam policy scale .16 .03 due to the absence of longitudinal data on
childhood orientations. But the long chain link­
* The political orientations used in this analysis are ing childhood learning with political outcomes
the five best predictors for each issue belief (see
Table 2). They were entered in the order o f their " McCIosky, “ Consensus and Ideology in American
strength as single independent variables. Politics," p. 374.
430 The American Political Science Review
depends upon the second assumption as much
as upon the first. We have characterized this
second assum ption as the structuring principle.
It has been subjected to systematic exam ination
and test in the present paper. G reenstein writes
that a long-run goal for socialization research is
to relate childhood experience to adult behav­
ior.150 O u r analysis has attem pted a modest step
in this direction.
The exploratory character of most socializa­
tion inquiries m ay lead readers to w onder
whether we have constructed a “straw m a n ”
here. In particular, it is easy to imagine objec­
tions to o u r account of the structuring princi­
ple's role in political socialization models. Such
objections are all the m ore likely because rela­
tionships between orientations and issue beliefs
have never been stated with satisfactory preci­
sion in the literature. T he chief difficulty in­
volves the confounding o f genetic and predic­
tive explanation. G enetic explanation attempts
to set out the sequence o f events through which
adult issue beliefs have been evolved. C h ild ­
hood orientations arc treated as the first major
stages in this sequence. W e have not been con­
cerned with questioning such theoretical asser*
tions or their methodology. Indeed, we wish to
disentangle this enterprise from the task o f pre­
dictive explanation in the literature."1
Predictive explanation specifies antecedent
phenom ena which are necessary a n d / o r suffi­
cient to generate adult issue beliefs. We have
argued that m uch socialization literature identi­
fies adult orientations as the phenom ena which
explain issue beliefs in this sense. And, in co n ­
sidering relationships between adult orienta­
tions and issue beliefs, we arc no longer speak­
ing o f distant genetic antecedents, but rather of
orientations which are said to “shape,” “struc­
ture,” and “d eterm ine” issue beliefs. The ge­
netic and predictive enterprises are clearly c o m ­
plem entary in socialization research. Yet. the
distinction between them is often blurred by
m etaphorical statem ents characterizing both
childhood and adult orientations as “ fram es of
reference” o r “ political eyeglasses” through
which political issues arc seen. W e believe that,
in practice, when these m etaphors describe
adult orientations, they are interpreted in p re ­
dictive terms.
O u r findings can be sum m arized as follows:
"G reenstein, Children and Politics, p. 163.
81 See: Michael Scriven, “Explanation and Prediction
in Evolutionary Theory,” Science, 130 (August 28,
1959), 477-82, reprinted in The Nature and Scope o f
Social Science, ed. Leonard I. Krimerman (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969), pp. 117-25; Robert
Brown, Explanation in Social Science (Chicago: Aldine,
1963); and, William Dray, Laws and Explanation in
History (London: Oxford University Press, 1957).
Vol. 67
(1 ) M any o f the most fam iliar socialization
orientations are generally unrelated to attitudes
tow ard outstanding political issues o f the day.
Even when orientations were subjected to a
multivariate analysis their explanatory power
did not improve. Such an absence o f constraint
in mass belief systems is certainly not a surpris­
ing finding. Similar results have been repeatedly
reported in public opinion research, albeit most
such inquiries examine relationships am ong is­
sue beliefs alone. The point of o u r test has been
to elaborate these public opinion findings and
to interpret their implications for socialization
models. ( 2 ) T h e structuring principle appears
to have been generalized from the belief that
party identification provides cues for evaluating
political issues. But we found that party identi­
fication is not at all distinguished in this regard.
O ther political orientations are more strongly
related to issue beliefs— though all in quite lim­
ited terms. ( 3 ) Evidence has also been pre­
sented contradicting the widespread assumption
that the more im portant an orientation is in
adult behavior, the earlier it is learned during
childhood. (4 ) Finally, political orientations
were found to be no more related to issue be­
liefs than arc the sort of personality factors for
which negative results have been familiar for
some time.
Yet theoretical relevance in allocative poli­
tics and system persistence models appears
closely bound up with the structuring
principle's validity: otherwise childhood orien­
tations lose their significance as the origin o f a
chain leading to dem ands and supports for the
political system. O u r findings cast considerable
doubt upon the structuring principle, and.
thereby, upon the theoretical relevance of
m uch childhood research und er allocative poli­
tics and system persistence models.
These models have never been fully articu­
lated in the socialization literature. Indeed, with
a few notable exceptions, a lack of careful at­
tention to theory seems to underly the difficul­
ties unearthed in this paper. This is not in­
tended as an unreservedly critical com m entary.
W hen next to nothing is know n about an e m ­
pirical phenom enon, exploratory data collec­
tion must be accorded the highest priority. It is
only when such data have been .assimilated that
we can enjoy the luxury o f theoretical niceties.
Fo r political socialization, we believe that the
time has come w'hen we are sufficiently fam iliar
with the terrain to begin m apping it according
to explicit theoretical concerns.
W hat, then, are the implications o f ou r find­
ings fo r directions in curren t research? First of
all, these findings have no bearing on research
which follows the behavioral constraint linkage
1973 The Structuring Principle
in allocative politics and system persistence
models. Yet, with the exception o f the relation­
ship between party identification and voting
choice, this relationship remains to be em piri­
cally established. O u r difficulty in characteriz­
ing the linkage underlines the need for further
clarification. Such clarification is a prerequisite
for tests similar to the one applied to the struc­
turing principle in this paper. Regarding data
collected under the structuring principle’s aegis,
we suggest the following: If this principle is to
be taken seriously as a research guide, and, if
we are therefore to continue presenting SRC-
type questions to young children, then the bu r­
den is now upon the principle’s proponents to:
( a ) specify exactly w hat sorts of orientations
are likely to be related to what sorts of issue
beliefs, and why; and, (b ) dem onstrate em piri­
cally that these relationships actually exist. The
point holds equally for behavioral constraint
and structuring principle versions of the m od­
els: A n orientation's importance in adult be­
havior must be demonstrated before we can be
sure that its childhood genesis is o f interest to
political science,
W herever ou r ultimate concern is to explain
systemic demands and supports, we also reiter­
ate the need, advanced by several researchers,
to examine adult socialization experiences
which may mediate, or even replace, the role of
childhood orientations in learning issue beliefs.
Although everyone acknowledges that social­
ization continues throughout the life cycle,
there has, in fact, been very little empirical at­
tention to adult political socialization. This
does not at all entail a turning away from the
current focus upon children. Some of their
learning may yet be found to contribute to ex­
planations of dem ands and supports. And even
should this contribution prove limited, we be­
lieve that the rich data already collected pro­
vide a basis for formulating additional theoreti­
cal perspectives.
Fo r instance, it is now clear that very young
children are much more affected by political
symbols and stimuli than had been previously
thought. But these data have been projected
primarily as contributions to explaining system
inputs: dem ands and supports. H ere we see re­
flected the discipline’s predom inant concern
with input processes. At the same time, there is
increasing acknowledgement that this has been
overdone to the extent that output phenomena
are neglected as independent variables. This
criticism is as applicable in political socializa­
tion as in other subfields of the discipline. The
question is, H ow can system outputs be related
to political socialization? It is necessary to
stress that output phenom ena are not restricted
431
to governmental expenditures. Statutory and
symbolic acts are also relevant. From this per­
spective, an output approach to political social­
ization might well investigate how the political
system alTects selected aspects of its citizens’
psychological lives.52 How does it affect their
experience of the political and social environ­
ment? T hanks to available data, we already
know that this influence begins during early
childhood. And, we are aware o f some of the
mechanisms involved. But instead of treating
children’s attitudes as independent variables,
this alternative would utilize them as depen­
dent, as phenom ena to be explained. Such an
approach, we feel, deserves o ur attention, not
in place of the input focus, but in addition to it.
Methodological Appendix
K endall’s T a u c was used as the measure of
association between basic political orientations
and specific issue beliefs. It was chosen as ap­
propriate for the ordinal nature o f the data, as
well as for its characteristic of correcting to
achieve unity when the num ber of rows and
columns are unequal. But as a measure of
monotonic association, T a u c cannot distinguish
between situations o f no association on the one
hand, and nonmonotonic, or crypto-curvilinear
associations on the other. Indeed, no satisfac­
tory analogue of curvilinearity tests exists for
ordered data. Still, curvilinear functions are pos­
sible with ordered as well as continuous vari­
ables. By way o f assessing the possibility that
such relationships were present, but not re­
flected in the Tau coefficient, we undertook
tests of significance and inspections of the
cross-tabulations.
X2 was used to determine departure from ex­
pected cell frequencies. This statistic does not
depend upon order properties of the variables
in question. In addition, it provides us with a
“discount” of apparent nonmonotonicity when
this is based on relatively small expected and
observed frequencies. We chose p equal to .01
as the level of significance. That is to say,
cross-tabulations with a probability of the null-
hypothesis being erroneously rejected less than
or equal to 1 in 100 were considered evidence
o f some relationship. These tables were then
exam ined further in an attempt to assess depar­
ture from monotonicity.
Examination of Table 1 shows that 101 of
the 195 bivariate relationships (52 per cent)
were found insignificant by our criterion. O f
” Jack Dennis has noted that thus far this piece of
the puzzle remains implicit in socialization research:
“ Major Problems of Political Socialization Research."
M idwest Journal o f Political Science, 12 (February,
1968), 109-110.
432 The American Political Science Review
the 75 significant mis-fits, 48 (25 per cent of
the 195 bivariate relationships) displayed evi­
dence of some departure from monotonicity.
.Such departure was indicated by examining the
column proportions in one of the two rows of
o u r tables. In all cases, our political orienta­
tions (the independent variables) were two-val­
ued. This means that categories on the depen­
dent variable were used as one coordinate.
A nd, proportions o f one o f the responses on
the orientation variables were then used to plot
a histogram. If a noticeable nonmonotonic pat­
tern existed in that plot, and, if the departure
from expected frequencies yielded a significant
X2, the variable was included am ong the in­
stances o f nonmonotonicity.
Similar analyses were perform ed on Tables
2, 3 and 4. Considering all these tables t o ­
gether, 314 o f 498 bivariate relationships (63
per cent) were found insignificant at the .01
level. With the remaining 184 significant rela­
tionships, 106 (58 per cent) were found to be
evidently nonmonotonic.
Although these findings might suggest some
modification of o u r conclusions, the magnitude
of such modification is impossible to ascertain
precisely. It is for this reason that we decided
to present these com m ents as a methodological
appendix, rather than in the main body of the
paper. Actually, we believe it unlikely that ou r
conclusions warrant modification. There seems
to be little patterning in the occurrence o f ap­
Vol. 67
parent nonm onotonicity and significant values
o f x 2- I* would be difficult to argue that any
orientation/issue-belief relationships are m ani­
fest, whether monotonic or nonmonotonic, at
least at the first-order level.
W e have not gone beyond the first-order
level for two reasons. One is that o u r inquiry’s
purpose is to examine direct linkages between
orientations and issue beliefs. Even where the
socialization literature has not unequivocally
asserted a direct linkage, this has been implicit
in analyses concerned w'ith first-order relation­
ships. T hen, too, the character of o u r first-order
relationships, where nearly two-thirds are not
significant, and better than half the rem ainder
apparently nonmonotonic, makes the task of
inductively discovering higher o rd er relation­
ships both epistemologically questionable and
difficult.
If we intend to search further for relation­
ships between orientations and issue beliefs, the
first task is to improve our measurement instru­
ments. It seems likely that some orientation/is-
sue-belief relationships will be nonlinear. Yet.
the ordinal nature of ou r attitudinal data c o m ­
pels us to apply monotonic models to the antici­
pated relationships. If interval measurement,
o r a convincing approximation, could be
achieved, then we would be able to test for cur-
vilinearity, and even induce function rules of
higher order from ou r data.