BEING IN 2 MINDS ABOUT A SINGLE CURRENCY - A UK PERSPECTIVE ON THE EURO

Recent public opinion polls show that the majority of UK citizens are opposed to replacing the pound by the euro. In this paper, we report a n initial attempt to elucidate some of the psychological bases of this adherence to the status quo. We tested a latent variable model which postulates that there are two kinds of attachment to national identity , cultural and instrumental attachment, each having both direct and in direct influences upon anti-euro sentiment. The former kind of attachm ent reflects the symbolic aspects of nationhood, whilst the latter cap tures the benefits of citizenship, such as the quality and delivery of social goods. Secondly, we investigated the extent to which people's expectations about euro benefits mediates the impact of attachment on anti-euro sentiment. It was found that only cultural attachment had a direct, amplifying effect upon anti-euro sentiment, whilst both forms of attachment had indirect effects via their opposite influences upon euro benefits. Cultural and instrumental attachment respectively had a ttenuating and amplifying effects on the latter, which itself tended t o act as an attenuator on the level of anti-euro sentiment. (C) 1998 E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.