Nursery school personality and political orientation two decades later

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Abstract

The present study reports on the personality attributes of nursery school children who two decades later were reliably stratified along a liberal/conservative dimension. An unprecedented analytical opportunity existed to evaluate how the political views of these young adults related to assessments of them when in nursery school, prior to their having become political beings. Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable. IQ during nursery school did not relate to subsequent liberalism/conservatism but did relate in subsequent decades. Personality correlates of liberalism/conservatism for the subjects as young adults were also reported: conservatives were described in terms congruent with previous formulations in the literature; liberals displayed personality commonalities but also manifested gender differences. Some implications of the results are briefly discussed.

Introduction

Politics is the expression within structured societal arrangements of efforts by people to differentially advance certain value systems. Worldwide, in every country, political views exist that have vast consequences for their country of origin, and often for the very fate of the planet. In this country, in Europe, and in most other parts of the world, views have long evolved to define a political spectrum usefully characterized as ranging from Liberal to Conservative. Neither end of this political continuum is necessarily homogeneous or fully internally consistent. But it has been communicative and simplifying to broadly view political positions in these terms, as does this study.

Psychologists and political scientists long have been drawn to understanding the associations between personality and political persuasion. For early examples, see Fromm, 1941, Adorno et al., 1950, Rokeach, 1960, Christie and Jahoda, 1954, Greenstein, 1969, McClosky, 1958. Contemporaneity regarding this compelling interest is to be gained from the work of, for example, Altemeyer, 1981, Altemeyer, 1998, Duckitt, 2001, Wilson, 1973, Sidanius and Pratto, 1999, Stone and Schaffner, 1988, and, especially, the recent monumental integrative review on conservatism by Jost et al., 2003a, Jost et al., 2003b. As they note, it is an empirical issue whether there are definite connections between intrinsic psychological qualities and the adoption of politically conservative attitudes.

The thrust of the present report is to present an unusual empirical study of the implications of individual character for political orientation—towards liberalism as well as towards conservatism. Although liberalism/conservatism has been generally recognized as connected to concurrent or subsequent behavior, its developmental roots have not previously been accorded research attention if only because there has been little opportunity for studying the early personality antecedents of political orientation. Various distal epidemiological factors are about all that have been considered. However, for deep political understanding, it may be critical to inquire how Liberals and Conservatives differ in their early childhood years, before they become political beings.

This question provides the primary motivation of the present inquiry. We assess nursery school personality via a laborious method and procedures that are relatively unfamiliar to political scientists and many psychologists but have been repeatedly supported. We also, in the same fashion, evaluate directly and independently the personality characteristics of our subjects as young adults. This analysis reveals support, via a quite different method, for earlier literature findings and, by so doing, therefore lends credence to the findings emerging from the preschool years.

Our analysis is permitted by an intensive and prolonged longitudinal study of personality and cognitive development (Block, 1993, Block and Block, 1980b). When the participants were in nursery school, well-based personality evaluations had been developed of each participant; separately, well-based personality evaluations also were developed when the participants were young adults. Within the confines set by the available sample, two questions are addressed: (1) When the subjects were in their early childhoods, prior to achieving political self-definition, what personality attributes—independently evaluated—relate to their subsequent political orientations as relatively Liberal or Conservative? Excepting certain genetic analyses (about which more later), no previous study has been able to address the question of the provenance from so early an age of subsequent political orientation. (2) At age 23, what personality attributes—independently evaluated—concomitantly characterize young adults who privately describe themselves as Liberals or Conservatives? This study is enabled to provide unique behavioral information on these intriguing questions.

Section snippets

Subjects

Subjects were participants in the Block and Block Longitudinal Study of Cognitive and Ego Development at the University of California at Berkeley, begun in 1969 (see Block, 1993, Block and Block, 1980b) for comprehensive descriptions of the study.

Subjects initially (about 1969–1971) were attending two different nursery schools and resided primarily in the urban areas of Berkeley and Oakland, California; they were heterogeneous with respect to social class and parents’ educational level. At age

Data analysis

The participants’ LIB/CON index scores at age 23 were correlated—for the genders separately—(1) with their CCQ item values gathered 20 years earlier, (2) with their concurrent observer-based age 23 CAQ item values, (3) with their sequentially acquired IQ measures, and (4) with the SES indices of their parents during the nursery school years. All score distributions were continuous. In the analyses, therefore, the presence of intermediate LIB/CON scorers effectively weakens the relationships

Discussion

In developing perspective on the findings, one should first bear in mind three considerations—the nature of the sample, the logical design of the study, and a fuller perspective on correlation coefficients.

The nature of the sample. The sample, born in the late 1960s and achieving young adulthood about 1990, grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, an enveloping cultural context appreciably different from much of America—a factor that should be taken into account. Widely and properly perceived as

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    This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 16080 to Jack and Jeanne H. Block, now deceased. Many, many thanks to Peter Feld and Adam M. Kremen for help in computer analyses.

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