Our original article espoused a simple way to recode religious groups on the General Social Survey (GSS) into historically meaningful categories and attempted to steer social scientists away from assigning these groups to a "Liberal-Moderate-Conservative" scale (Smith 1990). Among other problems, such scales create arbitrary cutpoints,…

Analysis of national survey data showed that the equity principle (those who contribute more should receive higher rewards) is a dominant U.S. social value, varying with education but not other life-chance differences. Equality counternorms were related to all life-chance variables, particularly race and income. Contains 30 references. (SV)

Prior research has shown that individuals living in the South express significantly less tolerant attitudes than the rest of the nation, while individuals residing in urban areas express significantly more tolerant attitudes than their rural peers. The authors seek to explain these generally unspecified Southern and urban effects by identifying…

Using General Social Survey and National Election Study, shows that from 1974 to 1986 percentage of young people willing to apply a conservative label to themselves increased, holding constant attitudes typically indicative of conservatism. Suggests that perceived increases in conservatism reflect not only a shift in attitudes but also a change in…