WORLDVIEWS OR SOCIAL-GROUPS AS THE SOURCE OF MORAL VALUE ATTITUDES - IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CULTURE WARS THESIS

Individual moral value attitudes are typically explained by reference to social experiences as indicated by social group variables. Contrary to this view, the emergent ''culture wars'' perspective claims that t wo worldviews that transcend social groups are ultimately and fundamen tally responsible for moral value attitudes. Although this relationshi p has been claimed for the general population, it has not been investi gated with national representative data. This paper contrasts the worl dview and social group explanations by examining the relative importan ce of the worldviews implicated in the culture wars literature and the social groups found to be important in previous research. I find soci al groups to be more important than worldviews, but that worldviews al so have explanatory power I conclude with a discussion about possible clarifications of the ''culture wars'' thesis.