The Stability of Political Attitudes and Behaviors across Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Comparison of Survey Data on Adolescents and Young Adults in Eight Countries |
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Authors: | Marc Hooghe Britt Wilkenfeld |
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Institution: | (1) Associate Professor of Political Science, Political Science Department, Catholic University of Leuven, Parkstraat 45/3602, 3000 Leuven, Belgium;(2) Department of Human Development, Institute for Child Study, University of Maryland, 3304 Benjamin Building (#143), College Park, MD 20 742, USA |
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Abstract: | The persistence of adolescents’ political attitudes and behaviors into adulthood is a perennial concern in research on developmental
psychology. While some authors claim that adolescents’ attitudinal patterns will remain relatively stable throughout the life
cycle, others argue that the answers of adolescents in political surveys have but a limited predictive value for their future
attitudes and behaviors. In this article, we tackle this question on an aggregate level, by comparing survey data for 14,
18 and 18 to 30 year old respondents from eight European countries (n = resp. 22,620; 20,142 and 2800). We examine political trust, attitudes toward immigrants’ rights and voting behavior. The
analysis suggests that country patterns with regard to political trust and attitudes toward immigrant rights are already well
established by the age of 14. We find less indications for stability in the relation between intention to vote (for 14 and
18 years olds) and actual voting behavior (for young adults). The latent structure of the political trust scale was found
to be equivalent for the three age groups we investigated. We close by offering some suggestions on why attitudinal stability
seems stronger than behavioral stability.
Marc Hooghe
is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). His research interests include
political socialization and political participation. He has also published widely on social capital and generalized trust.
Britt Wilkenfeld
is a PhD student at the University of Maryland, Department of Human Development. She has been a visiting scholar at the University
of Leuven. Her major research interests include youth involvement and the impact of community volunteering programs. |
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Keywords: | Attitudes Stability Adolescence Comparative research Political trust Voting |
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