Relationship between political orientation and socioeconomic status in Chilean political culture: a political psychology approach

Abstract

Based on a longitudinal study about political culture in Chile, we discuss the paradoxical evidence found in the literature suggesting, on the one hand, that the more pro-democratic and anti-authoritarian political attitudes are expected to be observed in higher economic level groups and, on the other hand, more conservative and anti-egalitarian attitudes are expected to be observed in dominant groups. We found that the pattern of political attitudes (authoritarianism, support to democracy, conservatism, and nationalism) is similar among rightwingers of high economic status, leftwingers of low economic status, and centrists of middle economic status. Instead, individuals whose political standing is incongruent with their socioeconomic group, show a pattern of political attitudes different from the predominant pattern. We conclude that the paradox can be solved explaining the pattern of political attitudes of a social group as a function of the fit of its political identity to its socioeconomic condition.