Sears & Valentino (1997) Politics Matters: Political Events as Catalysts for Preadult Socialization

Abstract:
We propose that (1) the preadult socialization of longstanding, stable predispositions is catalyzed by exogenous political events; (2) such events socialize attitudes selectively, only in the specific domains they make salient; and so (3) longstanding predispositions tend to be socialized episodically rather than incrementally. This theory is applied to the socialization of partisanship during a presidential campaign, examining gains in information, affective expression, and attitude crystalization. Adolescents (aged 10 to 17) and their parents were interviewed in a three-wave panel study, at the beginning of a presidential campaign, at the end, and a year later. The campaign induced substantial preadult socialization gains regarding attitude objects central to the campaign (candidates and parties), particularly in the stability of preadults' partisanship. There were few gains in attitude domains peripheral to the campaign or during the postcampaign period. These findings suggest that periodic political events catalyze preadult socialization, generating predispostions that persist into later life stages.

There are two positions:
(1) those scholars that hold that basic attitudes are susceptible to change (Downs 1957; Key 1966)
(2) scholars that hold attitudes are formed young, and persist into adulthood (Campbell 1960)
Thus there are considerable discrepencies about the origins and persistence of party identification. Yet "understanding the origins of Americans' party identification is of unquestioned importance for understanding voting behavior in the US" (2).

Three questions this article asks:
(1) Are preadult opinions meaningful? i.e. do preadult political opinions withstand time?
(2) Is there a point at which the attitude becomes fortified? i.e. the attitude is strong. Many have argued that attitudes captured in surveys are actually "non-attitudes" and oscilate with the question, mood, and time of survey.
(3) What is the rate of persistence? Do we adjust our view, or is it stable?

When are attitudes crystalized? the crystalization of attitudes involves attitude stability. when do they go form nonattitudes to "real" attitudes? The authors suggest it is at times when crucial events provide an extensive information flow (i.e. presidential campaigns)

Implications for findings:
(1) politics matter, to adults and preadults
(2) political socialization will progress discontinuously overtime
(3) different attitudes are likely to have quite different growth curves
(4) generational effects should emerge on issues that become highly salient in one specific historical era.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL EVENTS
prior political experience affects the effect of events; more fully socialized adults may be less effected by an event like the choice of our country to go to war. But preadults are likely to be less socialized than adults, and the authors hypothesize that a political events can help preadults close the gap. "Prior work on poltiical socialization suggests that preadults' precampaign attiudes are liekly to be high in expressed affect but based upon relatively little information and rather uncrystalized" (pg?).

Four state hypotheses:
H1 a pres campaign should generate preadult socialization gains in the attitude domains most centrl to the campaign, relative to precampaign baselines.
H2 preadults should show fewer socialization gains in the periods between presidential campaigns than duing campaigns
H3 during the campaign period, preadults should show fewer socialization gains in attitude domains either less salient or wholly peripheral to the campaign than in domains central to the campaign
H4 the campaign should help close the initial socialization gap between preadult and adults in domains central to the campaign. Yet it should not diminish preadult-adult gap in domains peripheral to the campaign, or in any domain during the post-campaign period.

Dep var:
socialization gains "expressed affect, information, and attitude crystallization. (measured using three dimensions of crystallization: (1) stability, (2) consistency and (3) the power of one attitude to determine other attitudes toward new or neutral objects).

Data:
three-wave panel studny of families from WI.
wave 1 N=718 parent-offspring pairs
wave 2 N = 501
wave 3 N = 366

Attitude domains: the president running and the political parties

Procedure:
effects of the campaign are assessed by comparing wave 1 with wave 2. if the campaign was a potent socializing event, then adolescents should show gains in the most central domains over the two waves. they should be less likely to show gains in the less salient domains between wave 2 and 3, conducted a year later. If there do happen to be gains in less salient or peripheral domains, they are from other sources, ie family socialization.

Measurement:
partisan affect strength:
(1) Candidate opinionation: like or dislike for candidate (carter, kennedy, reagan, bush)
(2) Candidate affect: intensity measure
(3) Party opinionation: evaluate party--4 questions
(4) Party affect: intensity of each eval.

partisan information measure:
(1) four factual questions regarding the candidates party affiliation
(2) ability to link party to corresponding symbols (14 of them)
(3) party-issue placement (4 specific issue questions)

crystalization measure:
most attention to the domains of insterest to campaign, and stability of attitudes of participations on these issues.

Findings:
Preadults
Affect (Wave 1, 2, 3)
(1) candidate opinionation (.83, .92, .95)
(2) intensity (2.02, 2.21, 2.29)
(3) party opinionation (.69, .79, .77)
(4) intensity (1.52, 1.73, 1.67)
Information
(1) candidates’ party (.49, .67, .66)
(2) party symbols (.39, .44, .50)
(3) party issue-placement (.41, .52, .64)
Attitude crystallization
(1) consistency of candidate evals (1.14, .97, .96)
(2) stability of candidate evals (1.02, .85, NA)
(3) consistency of party i.d. w candidate evals (1.55, 1.36, 1.27)
(4) consistency of party i.d. (.63, .67, .60)

Before election Preadults were partisan, but had little factual knowledge.
Preadult socialization gains during campaign: partisanship increased; party id became more crystallized; gained knowledge.
Preadult socialization after the campaign: measures of crystallization largely stops.
NO socialization gains in less salient domains.