Personality and life style as sources of support for the two party system
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This study examined the factors related to support for the two party system among a sample of political activists. Citizen support for the two party system was conceptualized as a composite of the following theoretical dimensions: (1) acceptance of the opposition party as a legitimate political contender, (2) nonsupport for possible alternatives to the two party system, (3) perceived credibility of the two major parties, and (4) perceived effectiveness of the major parties in performing party functions. The search for an explanation of variations in levels of support for the party system was expanded to include social and personality variables not examined in an earlier study by Jack Dennis. The data were collected through a mail questionnaire sent to candidates for state legislative and county offices in Missouri. The response rate was 48 per cent, yielding information on 325 respondents. Measures of support and its component theoretical dimensions were developed using Guttman scaling and factor analysis techniques. The general hypothesis that persons with more "established" life styles--homeowners, married person with children, longtime community residents, and organizational members--would have higher support for the party system was generally not supported. Of the life style factors, the organizatiorial memberships variable had the most impact upon support and its component dimensions. The personality traits of faith in people and intolerance of ambiguity were statistically associated with several aspects of supports, although the relationships were generally quite weak. The strength of political party identification was also an important influence upon components of support. Because of the generally weak relationships reported in this study and the earlier one by Jack Dennis, it was suggested that support for the party system is eventspecific. Variations in levels of support are not affected to any great extent by the personal and social characteristics of individual citizens. Citizen support for the party system is probably tied very closely to the impressions created by their exposure to political candidates, issues, and events.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.