A new study by a UC Berkeley professor claims that whiny insecure kids grow up to be conservative.
The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.
And then there is the British study that concluded that the parent's voting pattern was linked to how many girls they had.
Dads will even, we learnt this week, shift political allegiance for their daughters. [...]Professor Oswald, the father of two daughters, sat on the results for three months. He decided to release them this week, after finding the same pattern in German households. For every daughter a German has, he is 2.5 per cent more likely to vote for the SPD, the largest party of the Left. The link holds true even when parental age, income and education are taken into account, and Professor Oswald is certain it is causal. Since voting patterns cannot determine the gender of children, he says, the children’s gender must be influencing parental voting pattern.
But how and why? He frames his theory in utilitarian terms: because women tend to be more group-oriented, and to be paid less, we may expect them to favour a political system that taxes heavily and spends the taxes on communal improvements, such as crèches or police patrols. Women benefit from such policies without bearing a high tax burden because they are on low incomes. Parents of daughters are subconsciously aware that such policies favour women, and thus feel more inclined towards them.
But we still need to explain why parents would vote for something that benefits their offspring rather than themselves. Here Professor Oswald invokes Darwinian theory, which is that people make decisions that are likely to benefit their children. When children prosper, their chances of reproducing also flourish, and the genetic line is more likely to be continued. He believes that a switch in voter behaviour is a “subconscious nod” in this direction. While everyone assumed that parents moulded the political allegiances of their offspring, he says, the idea that one’s priorities change after parenthood is perfectly intuitive.
Oh, and let's not forget about the recent article in US Today about how progressives are so much less likely to have children.
All very fascinating results but what to make of it all.
Posted by rdreyes at March 21, 2006 12:23 PM