The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Contemporary Currents In Libertarian Political Philosophy By David Gordon
• I: Social Science Methodology
• Social Science Paradigms
• Sociology, Theory, & the Welfare State
• Durkheim, Ideology, and Method
• Polanyi, Hierarchy & Reductionism
• Historicism: Individuality Or Pattern?
• Social Science: Game, Drama, and Text
• Alfred Schutz and Phenomenology
• Moral Honesty In Social Science
• II: Economic Analysis
• Austrian Vs. Neoclassical Economics: Equilibrium
• Frank Fetter & the Austrian School
• Subjective Vs. Objective Costs
• The Significance of Subjective Costs
• Socialist Economic Calculation
• The Welfare State: Business & Labor
• Child Labor and Capitalism
• Economics Vs. Minimum Wage Politics
• Adam Smith Vs. Neo-mercantilism
• Laissez Faire and Moral Revolution
• III: Human Rights and Ethics
• Recent Scholarship On Rights
• Two Concepts of Rights
• Establishing Human Rights
• Misunderstanding Human Rights
• Is Privacy an Absolute Right?
• Animal Rights
• Nature and the Tao
• Self-knowledge: Nietzsche, Heidegger & Buber
• The Prospects of Objective Morality
• Measuring Ethical Ideologies
• Individualism and “locus of Control”
• Should We License Parents?
• IV: The Heritage of Freedom
• How Conservatives Differ From Liberals
• English Radicalism: Rights Vs. War & Taxes.
• Liberalism: the Seedbed of American Culture
• Republican Liberty & Military Policy
• Thomas Burke: Whig Radical
• Liberal Republicans During Reconstruction
• Adam Smith & the Liberal Tradition
• Human Individuality and Autonomy

How Conservatives Differ from Liberals

N.T. Feather

• The Flinders University of South Australia

“Value Correlates of Conservatism.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, no.9(1979):1617–1630.

A study involving two samples of Australian families assessed the differences in values held by conservatives and liberals. Respondents were given the Conservatism Scale developed by Wilson and Patterson. Those scoring high on the scale are likely to be pro-establishment, support the status quo, favor militarism, be intolerant of minority groups, favor strict rules of conduct including restrictive sexual behavior, oppose a pleasure-seeking orientation, oppose scientific progress, accept fatalistic superstitions, and have fundamentalist religious beliefs. Wilson believes that conservative attitudes serve a defensive function, reducing conflict and averting anxiety associated with an awareness of freedom of choice.

The participants were also given the Rokeach Value Survey. The Survey consists of 18 “terminal” values (concerned with end states and goals) and 18 “instrumental” values (concerned with means), each set to be ranked in order of personal importance.

High scores on conservatism were found to be associated with the following terminal values: salvation, family security, and national security. Low scores were associated with the endorsement of the terminal values of an exciting life, freedom, equality, pleasure, mature love, true friendship, and a world of beauty.

With respect to instrumental values, high scores on conservatism were associated with the endorsement of being obedient, clean, polite, honest, forgiving, self-controlled, and responsible, whereas low conservatism scores were associated with the values of being broad-minded, imaginative, independent, intellectual, logical, and cheerful. Also, conservatism was found more frequently among the older members of the samples and was higher for females than for males. In general the results from the two samples were quite similar.