Social traditionalism and economic conservatism: Two conservative political ideologies in the United States

The authors surveyed by telephone a random sample of voters in the 1996 pre sidential election from the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area of Munci e, IN ("Middletown"; R. Lynd & H. Lynd, 1929) to test a model describing th e nature of 2 conservative political ideologies-social traditionalism and e conomic conservatism. The model, based on functions of attitudes theory, pr edicted (a) that the 2 political ideologies would appeal to 2 rather distin ct constituency groups-the former, to conservative Protestants; the latter, to people of higher incomes-and (b) that social traditionalists would be m ore dogmatic and economic conservatives would be more open-minded in their respective views. The findings were consistent with those predictions.