HAVE AMERICANS SOCIAL-ATTITUDES BECOME MORE POLARIZED

Many observers have asserted with little evidence that. Americans' soc ial opinions have become polarized. Using General Social Survey and Na tional Election Survey social attitude items that have been repeated r egularly over 20 years, the authors ask (1) Have Americans' opinions b ecome more dispersed (higher variance)? (2) Have distributions become flatter or more bimodal (declining kurtosis)? (3) Have opinions become more ideologically constrained within and across opinion domains? (4) Have paired social groups become more different in their opinions? Th e authors find little evidence of polarization over the past two decad es, with attitudes toward abortion and opinion differences between Rep ublican and Democratic party identifiers the exceptional cases.