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Education, Family Background, and Political Knowledge: A Test of the Compensation Hypothesis with Identical Twins
Abstract
Prior research has consistently identified education as an important correlate of political knowledge, which, many argue, reflects an underlying causal relationship. However, recent work has questioned this interpretation rather arguing that family background causes one to both obtain an education and to develop political knowledge. I argue that this causal-versus-proxy debate is too simplistic. Specifically, using a sample of identical twins, I test the interaction between education, political discussion in the home, and political knowledge. I find that education is positively associated with political knowledge independent of family background and genetics for those who discussed politics with family relatively little during upbringing. However, for those who discussed politics with family members more frequently, education has no association with political knowledge independent of pre-adult factors. Therefore, education compensates for a lack of exposure to political content in the home.
... First, we use an identification strategy that reveals an effect that approaches a causal effect by estimating family fixed effects (FFE) models on data on identical twins (Neale and Cardon 1992;Allison 2005). The use of twin data for studying causal effects on political outcomes is becoming a more widely utilized methodological approach (Dinesen et al. 2016;Robinson 2019;Ahlskog and Brännlund 2021;Weinschenk et al. 2021). However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that tests compensation and reinforcement effects of education on political participation using this approach. ...
... If the study is underpowered, it is difficult to find an effect, even if it exists. The variation in political activity and educational attainment may be small also because siblings from the same family can influence each other (Neale and Maes 2004;Dinesen et al. 2016;Robinson 2019). More highly educated siblings may, for instance, convince their less educated siblings to join them in their political activities. ...
Whether educational attainment compensates for or reinforces family disadvantages in political participation is currently a debated topic. Previous research has shown a consistent relationship between social origin and political participation in Western societies: individuals originating from low-socioeconomic-status families participate in politics less than those from high-socioeconomic-status families, which violates the democratic requirement of equality of political voice. In this paper, we investigate whether secondary education compensates for or reinforces the political inequality shaped by social origin. We used a German representative sample of 1012 identical twins aged 21–25 and applied family fixed effects regression models, which allowed us to control for measured and unmeasured social and genetic confounding. We found a positive effect of educational attainment on participation, which is most likely causal. Family disadvantage resulting from low parental education is compensated for by children finishing the academic track ( Gymnasium ) as opposed to the lower vocational track ( Hauptschule ). At the same time, family advantage originating from high parental occupational status is reinforced for children completing the academic track. We found no advantage nor disadvantage, compensation nor reinforcement, related to parental income. We conclude that compensation and reinforcement of family disadvantage may remain unnoticed if components of parental SES are not distinguished.
... Broadly, political participation has been found to be associated with political knowledge (Robinson, 2020), values and self-interest (Fowler & Kam, 2007), and social identity, such as racial identity (Anyiwo et al., 2020) or gender (Milazzo & Goldstein, 2019). ...
What factors are associated with social workers’ political participation, and how does political confidence mediate those relationships? To answer this question, data were collected in 2020 through an original online survey of members of the U.S.-based National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Informed by self-efficacy theory, researchers conducted a structural equation modeling (SEM) path model with political participation as the outcome variable, and political confidence as a mediating variable. Exogenous variables included: one’s self-reported political orientation, belief that social work has a political mandate, gender, and knowledge about how to effectively participate in politics. Results indicate that high political confidence is associated with political participation. Similarly, the belief that ‘the social work profession has a political mandate’ is positively related to political participation, both directly and indirectly through its positive association with confidence. This study suggests that political knowledge-building in curriculum and programming, while necessary, does not sufficiently influence political participation. Instead, to support a politically engaged social work profession, social work educators and professional bodies ought to couple content about political knowledge with political practice in ways that realistically increase students’ political confidence and commitment to the idea that social workers are mandated to engage in politics.
... Existing studies on online activism often overlook its impact on political knowledge, focusing on mobilization (Cooper, 2023;Greijdanus et al., 2020). Similarly, research on youth's political knowledge often disregards the educational potential of digital platforms (Robinson, 2019). ...
This study appraises the nexus between online activism, political knowledge, and the mediating influence of diverse online information sources among Nigerian youth during the 2023 elections. Through an analysis of these relationships, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of digital spaces' role in shaping young individuals' political awareness. Specifically, this study examines whether engagement in online activism during the 2023 Nigerian elections positively correlates with increased levels of political knowledge among Nigerian youth and whether the extent of exposure to diverse online information sources mediates the influence of engagement in online activism on political knowledge. This study employs a quantitative approach incorporating techniques such as Pearson’s correlation and mediation analysis. Data were collected through an online survey of 409 Nigerian youth aged 18–35. The findings reveal a significant positive correlation between online activism and political knowledge, substantiating the hypothesis that active participation in digital advocacy enhances political awareness among Nigerian youths. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that exposure to diverse online information sources mediates the relationship between engagement in online activism and political knowledge, emphasizing the role of online platforms as conduits for political information and awareness. These findings underscore the pivotal role of online platforms in shaping the political knowledge landscape of Nigerian youth during the 2023 elections.
... The literature on the effects of citizenship education finds that well-designed citizenship education in general compensates inequalities (e.g. Campbell, 2008Campbell, , 2019Campbell & Niemi, 2016;Deimel et al., 2020;Gainous & Martens, 2012;Hoskins et al., 2017;Langton & Jennings, 1968;Neundorf et al., 2016;Robinson, 2019). Compensation occurs when citizenship education has a greater impact on adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds than on adolescents from advantaged backgrounds (Campbell, 2008;Neundorf et al., 2016), thereby narrowing the gap between the two groups. ...
In response to concerns about a lack of democratic engagement among youngsters, many governments intensify their efforts to stimulate democratic engagement and reduce inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged adolescents. One of the ways in which they try to do this is by on-site citizenship education programs. These include visits to a government institution, interaction with government officials and the reenactment of government institutions. Yet, it remains unclear whether these programs actually boost democratic engagement and compensate inequalities in democratic engagement. This study explores the effect of on-site citizenship education on (inequalities in) democratic engagement. In order to ensure that potential effects are truly attributable to the on-site citizenship program, I isolate the hypothesized causal effects by employing a quasi-experimental design with Difference-in-Difference estimation, reducing selection effects, and controlling for pre-test sensitization and time period. Moreover, I assessed whether the effects last over the course of a school year. The newly collected data consist of four waves among 585 students in thirty classes and three schools. The results show that the high expectations of on-site citizenship education need to be tempered: the main Dutch on-site citizenship program has a robust and lasting effect on political knowledge, but not on political attitudes and behaviors. Moreover, the program generally does not reduce pre-existing inequalities.
... The approach has also recently made headway in political science, primarily in the study of educational effects (e.g. Oskarsson et al. 2016;Dinesen et al. 2016;Weinschenk andDawes 2019 andRobinson 2020). ...
Unlabelled:
The boom in wealth inequality seen in recent decades has generated a steep rise in scholarly interest in both the drivers and the consequences of the wealth gap. In political science, a pertinent question regards the political behavior across the wealth spectrum. A common argument is that the wealthy practice patrimonial voting, i.e. voting for right-wing parties to maximize returns on their assets. While this pattern is descriptively well documented, it is less certain to what extent this reflects an actual causal relationship between wealth and political preferences. In this study, we provide new evidence by exploiting wealth variation within identical twin pairs. Our findings suggest that while more wealth is descriptively connected to more support for right-wing parties, the causal impact of wealth on policy preferences is likely highly overstated. For several relevant policy areas these effects may not exist at all. Furthermore, the bias in naive observational estimates seems to be mainly driven by environmental familial confounders shared within twin pairs, rather than genetic confounding.
Supplementary information:
The online version of this article (10.1007/s11109-020-09669-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
... Gidengil et al. (2017) also used a discordant design to study education and participation, but they focused on siblings rather than just twin siblings. Oskarsson et al. (2017) also used this technique to examine the effect of education on social trust in Sweden, and and Robinson (2019) used it to study the relationship between education and political knowledge in the United States. The value of this design, which only uses data on monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, stems from the fact that MZ twins share 100% of their DNA and, assuming they have been raised together, have been exposed to the same family environment. ...
Many studies have shown that political efficacy, interest in politics, and political knowledge are strongly related to political participation. In most analyses, these variables are described as having a causal effect on participation. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the relationship between political attitudes and participation is confounded by familial factors. By using the discordant twin design, which relates within-pair differences in political attitudes to within-pair differences in political participation, we are able to examine the relationship net of confounding factors rooted in genes and the early rearing environment. Using four samples of monozygotic twins from the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark, we find that the relationship between political attitudes and political participation is confounded to a large extent. This study makes an important contribution to the literature on political attitudes and political participation given the longstanding idea that attitudes cause political participation. Our findings also have practical implications for those interested in elevating levels of political participation. In addition, they have important implications for how scholars theorize about, model, and examine political participation in the future.
This study examines how citizens' attitudes toward government are affected by verifying or correcting their prior knowledge of governmental policy concerning the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using a survey experiment, we asked respondents about their knowledge of the stimulus check provided by local governments in South Korea. We then provided the correct answer to half of the respondents at random. For outcome variables, we measured satisfaction with the stimulus check, trust in the government, and intention to pay extra taxes. We found that only verifying correct prior knowledge, not correcting incorrect knowledge, improved respondents' attitudes. Subgroup analysis revealed that the verification effect occurred specifically among those whose income remained stable during the pandemic, regardless of whether their political orientation was congruent with their local government. Our findings suggest that rather than publicly releasing policy‐related information to citizens indiscriminately, verifying the information through closer communication with well‐informed citizens can be a more effective strategy to improve citizens' policy efficacy and attitudes toward the government.
Political trust is considered important for the stability of democratic political systems. However, there are large inequalities in political trust between groups in society, especially along educational lines. We focus on how these political inequalities develop in adult life. Specifically, we link political socialization in the workplace to political trust. We test how political socialization in the workplace fosters political trust and whether it compensates for or reinforces inequalities in political trust between educational groups. We use self-collected unique survey data (N = 2799) and show that political socialization in the workplace relates to political trust: political discussions, an open workplace climate, influencing organizational policies, and having positive experiences with workplace voice are positively related to political trust. Furthermore, we find no support that political socialization in the workplace increases the inequalities in political trust between educational levels but rather that there is a compensatory effect of political socialization in the workplace.
Purpose of the study: The empirical study aims to investigate connection and effects of millennials' political participation using social media sphere in Baluchistan, Pakistan. Methodology: The study used online survey method; descriptive data was collected from a sample of 1000 students of various universities in Baluchistan through Google forms using simple probability random sampling mechanism and empirically analyzed. Main Findings: The findings of research revealed that youth profoundly use social media and Facebook is the most popular site for civic engagement. Digital networks provided an avenue of political participation, social media facilitated vigorously contributing to local politics and identify concerns of the vicinity. Applications of this study: This research contributes to the political parties as they understand the importance of social media and role of youth in politics. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study filled a huge research gap and suggests recommendations for millennials' who are regular social media users in Baluchistan
A substantial literature in political psychology has emphasized the importance of personality traits for understanding differences in political participation. One such trait is extraversion. However, the causal status of this relationship is complicated by a number of issues, not least genetic confounding stemming from the heritability of both personality traits and political participation. This study confirms the well‐established naive relationship between extraversion and participation, but goes on with (a) a discordant MZ twin design and (b) a new approach using measured genetic variation, or a polygenic index, in the given trait (extraversion) to assess the causal nature of this relationship. First, utilizing variation in extraversion and participation within identical twin pairs shows that twins with higher extraversion do not participate more. Second, random variation within fraternal twin pairs in a polygenic index of extraversion does predict trait extraversion, but does not predict political participation. In summary, previously identified associations between extraversion and political participation are not likely to be causal, but instead reflect common underlying familial factors.
Many studies have shown that there is a positive relationship between education and political knowledge. However, some scholars have recently challenged this idea, arguing that the positive correlation between education and knowledge may disappear once confounding variables are considered. In this paper, we replicate a recent study that used the discordant twin design to examine the association between education and political knowledge. More specifically, we analyze the relationship between education and political knowledge within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, which enables us to bypass sources of confounding of the relationship (i.e. genes and socialization) because MZ twins reared together share both. Using data from a 2019 survey of twins from the Danish Twin Registry, we find that, consistent with earlier work, after accounting for familial factors, the relationship between education on political knowledge is small and not statistically significant.
By most accounts, an important prerequisite for a well-functioning democracy is engaged citizens. A very prominent explanation of variation in political engagement suggests that parental transmission through socialization accounts for individual-level differences in political engagement. In this paper, we show, using a large Danish twin survey ( N = 2,071), that classic formulations of parental transmission theory can be supplemented by findings from the biopolitics literature, allowing us to disentangle when heritable factors are important and when socialization factors are important predictors of political engagement. We show that as the level of family politicization and consistency increases, the influence of genes decreases. We take this to imply that family socialization can compensate for (genetic) individual differences and foster increased political engagement. By only focusing on the “causal” effect of education, we are missing the forest for the trees.
This article addresses hitherto overlooked factors that might contribute to lower political knowledge among citizens with socio-economic problems. Based on findings in psychology and behavioral economics, we argue that economic worries undermine the motivation and cognitive resources to acquire knowledge. The argument is tested in a representative online survey and an experiment during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in Germany. The results of the survey are in line with the theoretical expectations. Subjective crisis exposure, particularly when it comes with anxiety and ruminating thoughts, is associated with lower “surveillance” knowledge about politics. A follow-up experiment designed to randomly activate worries about the economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis could not establish a causal relationship.
Researchers have taken aim at the well‐established correlation between higher education and political participation, arguing much of the relationship is spurious. This has created an ongoing debate around what role, if any, education has in supporting participation, and continued questions around what underpins this relationship. Drawing on 63 semi‐structured interviews with young Canadians who went to school in low‐, mid‐, and high‐socioeconomic areas of Vancouver, I argue we can better answer these questions if we look at the influence of higher education in terms of a trajectory instead of an isolated treatment. Within these trajectories, I identify participatory social contexts (social contexts that produce participation as a desirable and expected activity) as key mechanisms that help develop dispositions for political participation. Participatory social contexts are more available to those on a trajectory of higher education, yet the experience of higher education itself appears to be of minor importance to participation.
Für die langfristige Funktions- und Überlebensfähigkeit moderner Demokratien sind politisches Wissen und politisches Vertrauen essenziell. Angesichts der demokratietheoretischen Relevanz, die beiden Konzepten als elementaren Bestandteilen einer funktionierenden Demokratie beigemessen wird, ist es überraschend, dass über das theoretische und empirische Verhältnis von politischem Wissen und politischem Vertrauen nur vergleichsweise wenig bekannt ist. Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrags ist es, den Zusammenhang zwischen politischem Wissen und Vertrauen in politische Institutionen genauer zu untersuchen. Hierbei werden mit strukturierenden, direkten und moderierenden Effekten insgesamt drei Einflusskanäle identifiziert und empirisch untersucht, über welche politisches Wissen das politische Vertrauen der Bürgerinnen und Bürger beeinflussen kann. Die empirischen Analysen auf Grundlage der Daten des ALLBUS 2018 zeigen, dass (1) politisches Wissen keinen nennenswerten Einfluss auf die dimensionale Struktur politischen Vertrauens ausübt, (2) sich direkte Effekte politischen Wissens insbesondere für das Vertrauen in repräsentative Institutionen nachweisen lassen und (3) politisches Wissen den Einfluss performanzbasierter Bewertungen auf politisches Vertrauen moderiert. Der Beitrag liefert somit wertvolle Erkenntnisse zum konkreten Zusammenspiel politischen Wissens und politischen Vertrauens als zentralen Eckpfeilern moderner Demokratien.
It is well documented that voter turnout is lower among persons who grow up in families from a low socioeconomic status compared with persons from high-status families. This paper examines whether reforms in education can help reduce this gap. We establish causality by exploiting a pilot scheme preceding a large reform of Swedish upper secondary education in the early 1990s, which gave rise to exogenous variation in educational attainment between individuals living in different municipalities or born in different years. Similar to recent studies employing credible identification strategies, we fail to find a statistically significant average effect of education on political participation. We move past previous studies, however, and show that the reform nevertheless contributed to narrowing the voting gap between individuals of different social backgrounds by raising turnout among those from low socioeconomic status households. The results thus square well with other recent studies arguing that education is particularly important for uplifting politically marginalized groups.
The development of political engagement in early life is significant given its impact on political knowledge and participation. Analyses reveal a large influence of parents on their offspring’s curiosity about politics during their teenage years. Increasingly, civic education is also considered an important influence on political interest and orientations of young people as schools are assigned a crucial role in creating and maintaining civic equality. We study the effects of civic education on political engagement, focusing especially on whether and how civic education can compensate for missing parental political socialization. We use data from the Belgian Political Panel Study (2006-2011) and the U.S. Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study (1965-1997), which both contain information on political attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and young adults, those of their parents, and on the educational curriculum of the young respondents. Our findings suggest that civics training in schools indeed compensates for inequalities in family socialization with respect to political engagement. This conclusion holds for two very different countries (the U.S. and Belgium), at very different points in time (the 1960s and the 2000s), and for a varying length of observation (youth to old age and impressionable years only).
In this study we provide new evidence on the much-discussed effect of education on political participation by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and participation within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs we are able to circumvent traditional sources of confounding of the relationship rooted in genes and early life family environment because MZ twins share both. The results of within-twin pair analyses based on surveys from the United States, Denmark and Sweden show that while the relationship between education and political participation is highly confounded by genes and/or familial environment in all three countries, a positive impact remains of years of education in the US and of high school completion in Denmark. No effect is found in Sweden. Robustness checks suggest that the observed effect is not confounded by within-twin pair differences in prenatal environment nor differential treatment during childhood, and, if anything, that it most likely constitutes a lower bound estimate.
Recently the causal influence of education on political knowledge has been questioned. Rather, pre-adult predispositions such as personality traits and intelligence are proposed as the real causal agents. This article investigates in two studies whether education retains its explanatory power regarding political knowledge when personality traits and intelligence are taken into account. One study draws on a draftee sample and has excellent measures of both personality traits and intelligence; the other study draws on a representative sample and has excellent measures of personality traits. Openness to experience and intelligence are found to be positive predictors of political knowledge and neuroticism a negative predictor of political knowledge. In both studies, education remains the single strongest predictor of political knowledge. Furthermore, education can, to a large extent, even out the differences in political knowledge between those with high and low cognitive abilities.
Political knowledge is a central concept in the study of public opinion and political behavior. Yet what the field collectively believes about this construct is based on dozens of studies using different indicators of knowledge. We identify two theoretically relevant dimensions: a temporal dimension that corresponds to the time when a fact was established and a topical dimension that relates to whether the fact is policy-specific or general. The resulting typology yields four types of knowledge questions. In an analysis of more than 300 knowledge items from late in the first decade of the 2000s, we examine whether classic findings regarding the predictors of knowledge withstand differences across types of questions. In the case of education and the mass media, the mechanisms for becoming informed operate differently across question types. However, differences in the levels of knowledge between men and women are robust, reinforcing the importance of including gender-relevant items in knowledge batteries.
What affects who participates in politics? In most studies of political behaviour it is found that individuals with higher education participate to a larger extent in political activities than individuals with lower education. According to conventional wisdom, education is supposed to increases civic skills and political knowledge that functions as the causal mechanisms triggering participation. However, recently a number of studies have started dealing with the question of whether education is a direct cause for political participation or merely works as a proxy for other factors, such as pre-adult socialization or social network centrality. This review article provides an introduction and critical discussion of this debate.
Evidence suggesting that the growth of civic roots in adolescence may be crucial to the long-term development of citizenship has stimulated research into factors that might influence civic development during this time. One interesting finding to emerge from that exploration is the apparent importance of discussion to the development of civic competence. Adolescents who discuss politics and current events with their parents, peers, or teachers tend to score higher than other youth on measures of civic behaviors, attitudes, and skills. They develop higher levels of political knowledge, show greater intention to vote in the future, and do better on a range of civic outcomes from petitioning and boycotting to raising money for charities and participating in community meetings (Torney-Purta et al. 2001; Andolina et al. 2003).
This paper examines the effects of education and cognitive sophistication on willingness to extend civil liberties to nonconformist
groups. We conducted secondary analysis of the 1984 General Society Survey data. The results show that there is a strong tolerance
dimension that cuts across groups and types of actions. We found strong positive effects of education on a multiple target
group tolerance scale that included both left-wing and right-wing groups. A substantial fraction of the education effect on
tolerance is mediated by cognitive sophistication. The effects of education on tolerance are strong even when a person has
negative feelings toward the target group. This paper helps identify why and when (e.g., cognitive sophistication and dislike
of a target group) education enhances political tolerance. We discuss the implications of the research for debates on the
education-tolerance relationship.
Surveys usually yield rates of voting in elections that are higher than official turnout figures, a phenomenon often attributed to intentional misrepresentation by respondents who did not vote and would be embarrassed to admit that. The experiments reported here tested the social desirability response bias hypothesis directly by implementing a technique that allowed respondents to report secretly whether they voted: the “item count technique.” The item count technique significantly reduced turnout reports in a national telephone survey relative to direct self-reports, suggesting that social desirability response bias influenced direct self-reports in that survey. But in eight national surveys of American adults conducted via the Internet, the item count technique did not significantly reduce turnout reports. This mode difference is consistent with other evidence that the Internet survey mode may be less susceptible to social desirability response bias because of self-administration.
Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality? This article examines the evidence and concludes that the answer is no. A new theory of development is proposed: that socialization is context-specific and that outside-the-home socialization takes place in the peer groups of childhood and adolescence. Intra- and intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. The universality of children's groups explains why development is not derailed by the wide variations in parental behavior found within and between societies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We use longitudinal data incorporating three generations of Americans to reevaluate the character and consequences of political socialization within the family. Findings about parental influence based on youth coming of age in the 1990s strongly parallel those based on youth socialized in the 1960s. As expected on the basis of social learning theory, children are more likely to adopt their parents’ political orientations if the family is highly politicized and if the parents provide consistent cues over time. The direct transmission model is robust, as it withstands an extensive set of controls. Early acquisition of parental characteristics influences the subsequent nature of adult political development.
Political sophistication is a concept that encompasses political reasoning, the coherence of people's issue attitudes, and their knowledge of political processes. To what extent is political sophistication affected by genes and environments? Do these distinct but related measures of sophistication share a common genetic structure? We analyze survey data collected from participants in the Minnesota Twin Registry to estimate influences of genes and environments on variables used to measure political sophistication. Additive genetic factors explain 48-76% of the variation in educational attainment, political interest, and political knowledge, while dominance genetics influence 28% of the variance of ideological consistency. Multivariate analyses show that, although these measures share common genetic and unique environmental factors to a modest extent, much of the variance is explained by specific genetic and unique environmental factors. Ideological consistency appears to be mostly distinct from the other measures, as it is strongly accounted for by unique environmental influences.
Empirical political behavior research has consistently observed a robust and positive relationship between education and political engagement, but has failed to adequately explain why education is so important. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) Longitudinal Study, I test three competing hypotheses explaining the enduring link between higher education and political behavior. I find that a verbal SAT scores and a social science curriculum are related to future political engagement, suggesting that the content of higher education, especially a curriculum that develops language and civic skills, is influential in shaping participation in American democracy.
Political scientists have long been interested in the determinants of political knowledge. In many studies, education is the strongest predictor of political knowledge. However, some studies have found that education has no effect on knowledge once confounding variables are taken into account. In addition, some recent work suggests that education remains the strongest predictor of knowledge even after accounting for confounders like personality traits and intelligence. We provide new evidence on the effect of education on political knowledge by utilizing the co-twin control design. By looking at the relationship between education and knowledge within monozygotic twin pairs, we are able to circumvent sources of confounding of the relationship due to genetic factors and early-life family environment because monozygotic twins share both. We find that the relationship between education and political knowledge is highly confounded by genes and/or familial environment. The results from a naive model that does not take into account unobserved family factors indicate that education has a positive and statistically significant effect on political knowledge. However, in a twin fixed-effects model that accounts for confounding due to genetic factors and familial socialization, we find that the effect of education on political knowledge drops substantially and is not statistically significant at conventional levels.
The literature on electoral violence has focused on its causes as well as its scope, ignoring the implications for citizens trying to practice their political citizenship. Informed citizens are a central part of a functioning democracy. The emotive response to violence may play an important role here. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of how the voter responds to violence. Recent work on the role of emotions in politics has demonstrated its positive role for cognition, as fear can increase the individual’s propensity to amass information and reevaluate attitudes and behavior. This is tested in a hitherto unexamined context, namely, Sub-Saharan Africa, using the Afrobarometer survey (20 different countries). In general, political fear is a significant predictor of political knowledge, but in the opposite direction compared to the hypothesis. The affective intelligence hypothesis only receives partial support using this data, namely, in countries with high levels of political violence.
Following the 2016 US presidential election, many have expressed concern about the effects of false stories ("fake news"), circulated largely through social media. We discuss the economics of fake news and present new data on its consumption prior to the election. Drawing on web browsing data, archives of fact-checking websites, and results from a new online survey, we find: 1) social media was an important but not dominant source of election news, with 14 percent of Americans calling social media their "most important" source; 2) of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times; 3) the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them; and 4) people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks.
Do state-level exams in civics have a positive impact on young people's civic knowledge? We hypothesize that civics exams have the biggest effect in states where they are a requirement for high school graduation—the incentive hypothesis. We further hypothesize that civics requirements have the biggest effect on young people with less exposure to information about the U.S. political system at home, specifically Latinos and, especially, immigrants—the compensation hypothesis. We test these hypotheses with the 2006 and 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics test administered to high school students, and with a large national survey of 18–24 year-olds. Across the two datasets, we find modest support for the incentive hypothesis and strong support for the compensation hypothesis.
One of the clearest results in previous studies on social trust is the robust positive relationship with educational attainment. The most common interpretation is that education has a causal effect on social trust. The theoretical argument and empirical results in this article suggest a different interpretation. We argue that common preadult factors such as cognitive abilities and personality traits rooted in genes and early-life family environment may confound the relationship between educational attainment and social trust. We provide new evidence on this question by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and social trust within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, we are able to avoid potential confounders rooted in genetic factors and common environmental influences because the monozygotic twins share both. The results suggest that when controlling for such familial factors the estimated effects of education on social trust are close to zero and far from reaching statistical significance. Further analyses show that the relationship between education and social trust largely is driven by common genetic factors.
Past research shows a statistically significant relationship between college completion and sociopolitical attitudes. However, recent scholarship suggests the effects of college on social outcomes may be confounded with unobserved family background. In this study, we leverage the shared family and social background of siblings to better identify the effect of college on sociopolitical attitudes. We draw data from the Study of American Families and General Social Survey and use sibling fixed effects to assess the effect of college on political orientation, support for civil liberties, and beliefs about gender egalitarianism. We find that earning a four-year college degree has a significant impact on support for civil liberties and beliefs about gender egalitarianism, but the effect of college on political orientation is confounded by family background.
Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality? This article examines the evidence and concludes that the answer is no. A new theory of development is proposed: that socialization is context-specific and that outside-the-home socialization takes place in the peer groups of childhood and adolescence. Intra- and intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. The universality of children's groups explains why development is not derailed by the wide variations in parental behavior found within and between societies.
Why do the various tenets of the party identification approach apply with different force to different political cultures? We develop a theoretical answer in the area of political socialization research and test its validity on data from eight countries. Our model is found to have stronger empirical support than a previous model developed by Percheron and Jennings. The evidence supports our contention that the party identification approach should not be simply rejected or accepted but rather investigated to understand when and why it applies.
Abstract After decades of neglect, civic education is back on the agenda of political science in the United States. Despite huge increases in the formal educational attainment of the US population during the past 50 years, levels of political knowledge have barely budged. Today's college graduates know no more about politics than did high school graduates in 1950. Recent research indicates that levels of political knowledge affect the acceptance of democratic principles, attitudes toward specific issues, and political participation. There is evidence that political participation is in part a positional good and is shaped by relative as well as absolute levels of educational attainment. Contrary to findings from 30 years ago, recent research suggests that traditional classroom-based civic education can significantly raise political knowledge. Service learning—a combination of community-based civic experience and systematic classroom reflection on that experience—is a promising innovation, but program evaluations have yielded mixed results. Longstanding fears that private schools will not shape democratic citizens are not supported by the evidence.
The vast, discordant literature on political sophistication, still divided over the variable's distribution in mass publics, is correspondingly divided over measurement. This paper, focusing on measurement, weighs the merits in these disputes. I first review the variable we all claim to be measuring, then the measures the literature affords. In the process I sketch several measures of my own and compare their empirical performance. Then, finally, I examine the distributional implications and offer some thoughts on future directions for sophistication research.
The intergenerational transmission of political orientations has been the
topic of considerable research over the past few decades, but much of the
evidence remains limited to two-party systems. In this study, we use data
from the first wave of the Parent–Child Socialization Study conducted among
3,426 adolescents and their parents in the Flemish region of Belgium. Even
in this multiparty system, we find a strong correspondence between voting
intentions of parents and children, enhanced by the degree of politicization
within the family. Talking about politics among parents and children has a
significant positive effect on parent–child party correspondence, and more
particularly political discussion with one’s father seems to have a stronger
effect on father–child party correspondence than discussion with one’s
mother does on mother–child correspondence.
Recent research demonstrates that a wide range of political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors can be explained in part by genetic variation. However, these studies have not yet identified the mechanisms that generate such a relationship. Some scholars have speculated that psychological traits mediate the relationship between genes and political participation, but so far there have been no empirical tests. Here we focus on the role of three psychological traits that are believed to influence political participation: cognitive ability, personal control, and extraversion. Utilizing a unique sample of more than 2,000 Swedish twin pairs, we show that a common genetic factor can explain most of the relationship between these psychological traits and acts of political participation, as well as predispositions related to participation. While our analysis is not a definitive test, our results suggest an upper bound for a proposed mediation relationship between genes, psychological traits, and political participation.
Qualitative studies of vote buying find the practice to be common in many Latin American countries, but quantitative studies using surveys find little evidence of vote buying. Social desirability bias can account for this discrepancy. We employ a survey-based list experiment to minimize the problem. After the 2008 Nicaraguan municipal elections, we asked about vote-buying behavior by campaigns using a list experiment and the questions traditionally used by studies of vote buying on a nationally representative survey. Our list experiment estimated that 24% of registered voters in Nicaragua were offered a gift or service in exchange for votes, whereas only 2% reported the behavior when asked directly. This detected social desirability bias is nonrandom and analysis based on traditional obtrusive measures of vote buying is unreliable. We also provide systematic evidence that shows the importance of monitoring strategies by parties in determining who is targeted for vote buying. C lientelistic electoral linkages are characterized by a transaction of political favors in which politi-cians offer immediate material incentives to cit-izens or groups in exchange for electoral support. 1 Vote buying, which is a more particularized form of clien-telism involving the exchange of goods for votes at the individual level (Stokes 2007), has generated numerous ethnographies and surveys to measure its incidence and test-related hypotheses. While qualitative research rou-tinely finds vote buying to be pervasive in the developing world (e.g., Auyero 2001), individual-level surveys often uncover low levels of such exchanges (e.g., Transparency Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos is a Ph.
Numerous studies have shown that an open classroom climate for discussion increases students' civic knowledge. However, most previous studies draw on cross-sectional data and have not been able to show that the effect is causal. This article presents results from a Swedish panel survey following students during the first year in the gymnasium (upper secondary level). Using this study, we are better equipped to evaluate the link between an open classroom climate and political knowledge. Results suggest that the effect is causal. A 10% increase in open classroom climate is associated with about 5 percentage points higher knowledge. The beneficial effect of an open classroom climate is an important insight that should be seriously considered not only by researchers but also by educational policy makers, school managements, and teachers.
This paper employs an online voting simulation to examine how the vote decision process affects the vote choice. We focus on proximity voting, an empirically powerful but informationally demanding model of voter behavior. Holding contextual factors constant, we find that more politically knowledgeable individuals engage in a deeper and broader decision process prior to casting their ballot, and, in turn, a more detailed decision process boosts the likelihood that one will vote proximately. In addition, we find that detailed decision processes have a stronger link with proximity voting among the most knowledgeable individuals, who are able to skillfully engage with new information.
Many studies of media effects use self-reported news exposure as their key independent variable without establishing its validity. Motivated by anecdotal evidence that people's reports of their own media use can differ considerably from independent assessments, this study examines systematically the accuracy of survey-based self-reports of news exposure. I compare survey estimates to Nielsen estimates, which do not rely on self-reports. Results show severe overreporting of news exposure. Survey estimates of network news exposure follow trends in Nielsen ratings relatively well, but exaggerate exposure by a factor of 3 on average and as much as eightfold for some demographics. It follows that apparent media effects may arise not because of differences in exposure, but because of unknown differences in the accuracy of reporting exposure.
The importance of factual political knowledge in affecting information processing and political behavior has recently received considerable attention. However, relatively little is known about the dynamics of such knowledge over long periods of time. This article utilizes a national two-generation, three-wave panel study stretching from 1965 to 1982 to address the issue of dynamics at both the aggregate and individual level, Factual knowledge is divided into the domains of governmental mechanics (textbook knowledge), current events (surveillance knowledge), and historical facts (treated here under the rubric of collective memories). Comparison of the two generations shows that high aggregate continuity sets in by the early stages of mid-life, with the young generation showing sharp losses of textbook knowledge but gains in other types. Distinctive generational differences appear with respect to certain events occurring at early, formative life stages, The size of the generation gap depends on time of birth as well as time of observation, Individual-level continuity for mature adults rivals that occurring for strongly held attitudes. Trends within the younger generation indicate the same kind of crystallization process that marks many political attitudes. In view of the high degree of individual- and aggregate-level stability among mature adults, special attention rests on the content of the knowledge that is being hardened and internalized during the early adult years.
Democratic politics is a collective enterprise, not simply because individual votes are counted to determine winners, but more fundamentally because the individual exercise of citizenship is an interdependent undertaking. Citizens argue with one another, they inform one another, and they generally arrive at political decisions through processes of social interaction and deliberation.
This book is dedicated to investigating the political implications of interdependent citizens within the context of the 1984 presidential election campaign as it was experienced in the metropolitan area of South Bend, Indiana. Hence, this is a community study in the fullest sense of the term. National politics is experienced locally through a series of filters unique to a particular setting. And this study is concerned with understanding that setting and its consequences for the exercise of democratic citizenship.
Several different themes structure the undertaking: the dynamic implications of social communication among citizens, the importance of communication networks for citizen decision making, the exercise of citizen purpose in locating sources of information, the constraints on individual choice that arise as a function of contexts and environments, and the institutional and organizational effects that operate on the flow of information within particular settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In politics, those who are politically sophisticated are advantaged in a variety of ways relative to those who are not. This paper analyzes the causes of political sophistication paying particular attention to the variable most commonly identified as the primary cause of differences within the mass public, educational attainment. Using panel data first collected before some respondents attended college, I show that there appears to be no significant effect of attending and graduating from college on political awareness. Differences in political sophistication evident after people attend college are already in place before anyone sets foot in a college classroom. Explaining political sophistication therefore requires attention to pre-adult causes. I elaborate an explanation and find that it accounts for a substantial portion of the spurious relationship between education and political sophistication.
The consensus in the empirical literature on political participation is that education positively correlates with political participation. Theoretical explanations posit that education confers participation-enhancing benefits that in and of themselves cause political activity. As most of the variation in educational attainment arises between high school completion and decisions to enter postsecondary institutions, we focus our inquiry on estimating the effect of higher education on political participation. Our primary purpose is to test the conventional claim that higher education causes political participation. We utilize propensity-score matching to address the nonrandom assignment process that characterizes the acquisition of higher education. After the propensity-score matching process takes into account preadult experiences and influences in place during the senior year of high school, the effects of higher education per se on participation disappear. Our results thus call for a reconsideration of how scholars understand the positive empirical relationship between higher education and participation: that higher education is a proxy for preadult experiences and influences, not a cause of political participation.
For the greater part of human history, political behaviors, values, preferences, and institutions have been viewed as socially determined. Discoveries during the 1970s that identified genetic influences on political orientations remained unaddressed. However, over the past decade, an unprecedented amount of scholarship utilizing genetic models to expand the understanding of political traits has emerged. Here, we review the 'genetics of politics', focusing on the topics that have received the most attention: attitudes, ideologies, and pro-social political traits, including voting behavior and participation. The emergence of this research has sparked a broad paradigm shift in the study of political behaviors toward the inclusion of biological influences and recognition of the mutual co-dependence between genes and environment in forming political behaviors.
Demands for the inclusion of children, the youngest citizens, in democratic decision making are increasing. Although there is an abundance of empirical research on the political orientations of adolescents, there is a paucity of research on younger children's orientations. Our panel study of more than 700 children in their first year of primary school shows that these young children already exhibit consistent, structured political orientations. We examine the distribution and development of political knowledge, issue orientations, and notions of good citizenship. We find achievement differences between subgroups at the beginning of the school year, and these differences do not disappear. Children from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic residence areas show relatively less developed political orientations, and they do not improve as much over the school year as other children. Furthermore, normative political orientations and cognitive orientations differ in their development.
After decades of neglect, civic education is back on the agenda of po-litical science in the United States. Despite huge increases in the formal educational attainment of the US population during the past 50 years, levels of political knowl-edge have barely budged. Today's college graduates know no more about politics than did high school graduates in 1950. Recent research indicates that levels of political knowledge affect the acceptance of democratic principles, attitudes toward specific issues, and political participation. There is evidence that political participation is in part a positional good and is shaped by relative as well as absolute levels of educational attainment. Contrary to findings from 30 years ago, recent research suggests that tra-ditional classroom-based civic education can significantly raise political knowledge. Service learning—a combination of community-based civic experience and system-atic classroom reflection on that experience—is a promising innovation, but program evaluations have yielded mixed results. Longstanding fears that private schools will not shape democratic citizens are not supported by the evidence.
hy do people think and act politically in the manner they do? Despite the foundational nature of this question, answers are unfortu- nately incomplete and unnecessarily tentative, largely because political scientists do not take seriously the possibility of nonenvironmental influences. The sug- gestion that people could be born with political pre- dispositions strikes many as far-fetched, odd, even perverse. However, researchers in other disciplines—- notably behavioral genetics—-have uncovered a sub- stantial heritable component for many social attitudes and behaviors and it seems unlikely that political atti- tudes and behaviors are completely immune from such forces. In this article, we combine relevant findings in behavioral genetics with our own analysis of data on a large sample of twins to test the hypothesis that, con- trary to the assumptions embedded in political science research, political attitudes have genetic as well as en- vironmental causes. 1
Survey researchers have long known that Americans fail to meet the democratic ideals of an informed electorate. The consequences of this political ignorance, however, are less clear. In two independent settings, we experimentally test the effect of political information on citizens’ attitudes toward the major parties. When uninformed citizens receive political information, they systematically shift their political preferences away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. In contrast to the optimistic claims that political ignorance is compensated through other mechanisms, our results suggest that the lack of information in the current American electorate typically produces results that differ from the ideal counterfactual world where all voters are informed.
Theory and evidence suggests that respondents are likely to overreport voter turnout in election surveys because they have a strong incentive to offer a socially desirable response. We suggest that contextual influences may affect the socially desirable bias, leading to variance in the rate of overreporting across countries. This leads us to hypothesize that nonvoters will be more likely to overreport voting in elections that have high turnout. We rely on validated turnout data to measure overreporting in five countries which vary a great deal in turnout: Britain, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. We find that in national settings with higher levels of participation, the tendency to overreport turnout may be greater than in settings where low participation is the norm.
Debates over the political sophistication of mass publics smolder on. The more fundamental question, however, is why people become as politically sophisticated or unsophisticated as they do. This paper develops a nonlinear simultaneous equation model to weigh explanations of three general sorts: the politicalinformation to which people are exposed, theirability to assimilate and organize such information, and theirmotivation to do so. The estimates suggest that interest and intelligence, representing motivation and ability, have major effects, but that education and media exposure, the big informational variables, do not. I consider the reasons and sketch some implications for the sophistication of mass publics, for the study of sophistication and other variables of extent, and for democratic theory.
Does civics instruction have an impact on the political engagement of adolescents? If so, how? Analysis of data from CIVED,
a major study of civic education conducted in 1999, finds that an open classroom climate has a positive impact on adolescents’
civic knowledge and appreciation of political conflict, even upon controlling for numerous individual, classroom, school,
and district characteristics. Furthermore, an open classroom environment fosters young people’s intention to be an informed
voter. Results further show that exposure to an open classroom climate at school can partially compensate for the disadvantages
of young people with low socioeconomic status.