Gallup: Social conservatism bounces up, economic conservatism steady

[Stephanie]

links in article at site.

SNIP:

posted at 6:31 pm on May 25, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Interestingly, Gallup didn’t lead with the finding on social conservatism from its latest survey, but that may be because the bounce upward followed two straight declines in the same series.

The focus on economic conservatism is a little more dramatic, if consistent:
Americans are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%. The gap is narrower on social issues, but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%. …

In the same poll, on Gallup’s standard measure of ideology — not asked in reference to any set of issues — 41% identified themselves as conservatives, 33% as moderates, and 23% as liberals. Those figures are similar to what Gallup typically finds when it asks people to identify their ideology.

Thus, compared with the standard measure of ideology, slightly more Americans say they are economically conservative and slightly fewer say they are socially conservative. Also, significantly more Americans say they are socially liberal than identify their basic ideology as liberal.

Why might that be? Perhaps because to be seen as socially liberal is more “cool.” It may also provide a bit of social cover for economic conservatism; I’ve heard people say, “Yes, I’m a fiscal conservative, but I’m socially liberal” on a number of occasions. However, the actual breakout shows that people don’t actually think of themselves in that way. Of the 46% who claim to be economic conservatives, only 3% also claim in this study to be social liberals, with 11% identifying as social moderates.

This is the same survey, however, that found a majority of respondents identifying as “pro-life,” with pro-choice identification dropping to 41%, a new low. That indicates that either more social moderates are crossing over to pro-life, or social moderates might be disappearing. This graph from the survey suggests it might be more of the latter:

read it all here..
Gallup: Social conservatism bounces up, economic conservatism steady « Hot Air