Voters who use ideological terms spontaneously are a small minority

Evidence

It soon became apparent, however, that such respondents were in a very small minority, as their unusual education or involvement would suggest. At this point, we broadened the inquiry to an assessment of the evaluative dimensions of policy significance (relating to political issues, rather than to the way a candidate dresses, smiles, or behaves in his private life) that seemed to be employed in lieu of such efficient yardsticks as the liberal-conservative continuum. The interviews themselves suggested several strata of classification, which were hierarchically ordered as “levels of conceptualization” on the basis of a priori judgments about the breadth of contextual grasp of the political system that each seemed to represent. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1887

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the core concept of ‘levels of conceptualization’ used throughout The American Voter.