Attitude changes from majority pressure are quick but temporary and shallow

Evidence

Once this possibility is set aside, however, there is only one other model involving a mixture of two types of process of change that fits the ob-served data. This model is somewhat surprising but not totally implausible. It posits a very sharp dichotomy within the population according to processes of change that are polar opposites. There is first a “hard core” of opinion on a given issue, which is well crystallized and perfectly stable over time. For the remainder of the population, response sequences over time are statistically random. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1950 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Legislative change follows shifts in public opinion by decades, so opinion must come first — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1646; News coverage affects attitudes with a peak two-week memory window. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 622; Depolarization interventions produce small, decaying effects that fail to scale or shift downstream attitudes — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 18 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Most observed attitude instability is random noise, not real opinion change #complicates (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1950