People’s abstract political principles often fail to match their concrete policy preferences

Evidence

A fifth concern is that the impact of symbolic racism is just a result of conceptual overlap with our dependent variables. If symbolic racism merely measured opposition to special, race-conscious government aid to blacks in the abstract, and the racial policy scales, opposition to it in concrete form, any association between them might reflect nothing more than that common content. To begin with, it might be noted that abstract and concrete versions of sociopolitical attitudes are not invariably consistent with each other. Classic cases include the “principle-implementation” gap in racial attitudes (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985), the gap in responses to abstract and concrete versions of civil liberties, or the common preference for both “smaller government” and increased spending on specific services (see, e.g., Sears & Citrin, 1985). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3748

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the principle-implementation gap literature and public opinion research; parallels findings on voters supporting smaller government but liking specific programs. — connects to: Conservatives reject self-determination for some peoples while championing it for others — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 1002; Personal and political framing both shrink problems but operate in opposite directions. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1266; Citizens often lack formed preferences absent forums for collective deliberation — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 313 (+3 more)
• SHARE: The principle-implementation gap and abstract-vs-concrete attitude inconsistency is a classic finding worth sharing with someone working on public opinion or survey design.