SOCIOPOLITICAL VALUES AND INTEGRATIVE COMPLEXITY OF MEMBERS OF STUDENT POLITICAL GROUPS

Members of University affiliates of the four major B.C. parties were a ssessed for responsibility ascription, authoritarianism, humanistic vs . normative polarity, value conflict between equality and freedom, and integrative complexity in writing about value conflict. The NDP group , more than Liberal, Progressive Conservative, and Social Credit suppo rters, attributed responsibility to diffuse, global factors (not indiv iduals or traditional authorities) and subscribed to humanistic rather than normative evaluative schemata. They scored lowest on authoritari anism and highest on the importance of Equality as a social value. Dif ferences among the other three groups were less consistent. High value conflict between Freedom and Equality was associated with higher inte grative complexity in writing about the two values, and members of the two ''pragmatic'' parties (Liberal and PC) wrote more complex essays than the two ''ideological'' groups (NDP and Socred). The findings are relevant to theoretical propositions concerning the attitudes and cog nitions associated with differing political ideologies and with the dy namics of B.C. politics.