Political elites hold far more stable policy beliefs than ordinary citizens

Evidence

While we have no comparable longitudinal data for an elite sample, the degree of fit between answers to our issue items and congressional roll calls is strong enough to suggest that time correlations for individual congressmen in roll-call choice on comparable bills would provide a fair estimate of the stability of an elite population in beliefs of this sort. It is probably no exaggeration to deduce that, in sharp contrast to a mass sample, eighteen out of twenty congressmen would be likely to take the same positions on the same attitude items after a two-year interval. In short, then, we feel very confident that elite-mass differences in levels of constraint among beliefs are mirrored in elite-mass differences in the temporal stability of belief elements for individuals. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1935 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

We observed much earlier that the centrality of a specific belief in a larger belief system and the relative stability of that belief over time should be highly related. From our other propositions about the role of groups as central objects in the belief systems of the mass public, we can therefore arrive at two further predictions. The first is simply that pure affect toward visible population groupings should be highly stable over time, even in a mass public, much more so in fact than beliefs on policy matters that more or less explicitly bear on the fortunes of these groupings. Second, policy items that do bear more rather than less explicitly upon their group interest should show less stability than affect towards the group qua group but more than those items for which contextual information is required. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1936 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Such an account presumes, once again, that constraints visible at an elite level are mirrored in the mass public and that a person choosing to vote Republican after a decade or two of Democratic voting saw himself in some sense or other as giving up a more liberal choice in favor of a more conservative one. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1883 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mass publics hold more logical inconsistencies than political elites do.; Elite political beliefs are far more temporally stable than mass beliefs — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1935; Political elites hold ideologically organized beliefs while the mass public shows little constraint — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1921 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Elite political beliefs are far more temporally stable than mass beliefs #corroborates (1.00) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1935
• Affect toward social groups stays more stable than policy beliefs in mass publics #complicates (0.74) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1936
• Explaining election swings assumes elite-level ideology mirrors in the mass public #complicates (0.73) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1883